Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004
Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004 |
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Chennai
By A. Subramani
CHENNAI, AUG. 10. Faced with possible contempt of court proceedings being initiated against the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) Chairman and two other officials, the Board today restored power supply to an apartment complex housing 14 flats and a departmental store in T. Nagar. The order came following the sudden disconnection of supply to an apartment at No.24, Dr. Nair Road, on August 7. A resident of the complex, Niraj Gupta, in a petition before the Madras High Court, said TNEB officials came to the building on August 6 and showed a notice stating that "the Board was disconnecting the power supply within 24 hours under Section 28(1)(b) of the Terms and Conditions of Tamil Nadu Electricity Supply Rules, and as per the orders of the High Court." It added that no copy of the notice was served on the residents. On August 7, the petitioner submitted a reply to the Executive Engineer, CEDS/Central/O&M/Mambalam, saying the impugned notice had not been officially served on the petitioner and that the official had refused to give any acknowledgement as no notice was served. "The disconnection of power supply without serving the notice and without giving an opportunity of representation and personal hearing is illegal and arbitrary," the petition said. When the matter came up for hearing on Monday, Justice R. Balasubramanian ordered that the power connection be "restored forthwith." Following the order, it was restored at 6.30 p.m., only to be disconnected again within an hour. The entire apartment complex went without power on Monday night. Today, senior counsel Sriram Panchu brought up the matter before Mr. Justice Balasubramanian and pointed out that the court order had been violated. Viewing the matter seriously, the judge told the Government advocate that unless the power was restored by 1.30 p.m. today, the TNEB Chairman and the jurisdictional Executive Engineer and the Assistant Executive Engineer should be present in court at 2.15 p.m. for contempt of court proceedings.
Earlier restraint
In his affidavit, Mr. Gupta referred to an earlier round of litigation in 2000 and a similar order of injunction restraining the Board officials from disconnecting power supply to the complex. The injunction granted on January 5, 2000 and extended by another four months on March 15, 2000, was yet to be vacated. In that petition, Mr. Gupta had impleaded one A. Sundari as party to the case. Besides putting them on notice about the disconnection, the then Board notice called upon the residents to "furnish all relevant documents to prove their ownership of the property." Though she did not possess any document or title deeds to show that she was the owner of the property, Ms. Sundari had told the Board that probate proceedings in the High Court had been decided in her favour and that it had been proved that her father had bequeathed to her a total of 18 pieces of property in Chennai. Mr. Gupta, besides contesting her claims, alleged that she was "harassing the residents due to her strong political connections."
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