Bombay HC refuses to intervene in PIL relating to exorbitant power bills; asks MSEDCL & MERC to ensure citizens can register online complaints

The Decision

On 14th July, the Bombay High Court passed an order through which it refused to intervene in the two Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed to get some relief against the alleged inflated and exorbitant electricity bills that the residents across the state have received from March to June. The petitions were disposed on the grounds that the petitioners had not availed the alternate remedy of seeking redressal which is available to them. The court highlighted that the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) itself has its grievance resolution mechanism and hence the petitioners should have approached that first.

Arguments led by the opposing sides

The High Court’s division bench of Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Milind J Jadhav passed two separate orders disposing of these PILs. One of the petitions, filed by a businessman based out of Mumbai, requested the court to interfere in the matter and direct the state government and electricity providers to ensure that there are no such excessive power bills for June. It also asked the court for a formulation of a robust strategy to avoid the expensive bills in this pandemic. MSEDCL’s (Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited) counsel Kiran Gandhi strongly contended these submissions and argued that the service providers i.e. regulators initially issued the electricity bills on average consumption of three months after taking the pandemic into due consideration. She also stated that the providers also issued various notifications to the general public to make them aware of them conducting such an exercise and then issuing the energy bills.

The other petition, filed by Mr. Ravindra M Desai, another Mumbai based businessman, was against the state energy department along with electricity provider companies like that of Adani Electricity, Tata Power, etc. Jyoti Chavan, arguing on behalf of the Government stated that the correct chronology was the complainant, Mr. Desai was not followed. She stated that he had already lodged a complaint with MERC’s grievance redressal forum. However, he had not yet received any response which led him to approach the High Court. She further argued that only if he was not satisfied with the forum’s response, then could he appeal against it in the appellate authority, and even if not satisfied by that, can he approach the HC.

‘Follow the three-tier grievance redressal mechanism’– High Court

After hearing all the sides, the bench observed that the petitioners did not fully exhaust the alternate remedies available to them. It highlighted that the three-tier redressal mechanism has to be followed for such complaints i.e. first, the consumers should approach the Internal Grievance Redressal Forum

(IGRF) of the respective company/department. If the consumer is unsatisfied with the forum’s decision, it can then file an appeal to Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum (CGRF) and again if the consumer is aggrieved by the decision of the appellate forum, the consumer can approach the last authority i.e. the Electricity Ombudsman. The court also directed MERC to gives its decision in eight weeks on the complaint already filed by Mr. Desai. It asked MERC also to ensure that Mr. Shaikh’s grievance, if he makes one, accordingly to the Electricity Act, 2003.