NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea by a power consumer to direct the private power distribution company BSES Rajdhani Power Limited here to replace his electronic meter with the old electro-mechanical one holding that the new meter has no faults.

However, Justice Pradeep Nandrajog of the High Court did uphold the apprehension that the electronic meter has the capacity to record consumption by monitoring two supply lines having a common neutral wire and calculates real power consumption based on larger of two currents in the current path.

However, the electronic meter "because of this peculiar feature cannot be said to be faulty on this count,'' Mr. Justice Nandrajog said in his 90-page judgment.

"What is faulty is the common neutral and non-segregation of supply lines,'' Mr. Justice Nandrajog said.

By way of an illustration, Mr. Justice Nandrajog further stated that of two consumers having a common neutral wire, the one who consumes less ends up paying more.

The Court also put the power distribution companies in the dock in the matter. "To some extent, the blame must be shared by the distribution companies as they were aware of the problem of common neutral wire and non-segregated supply lines,'' Mr. Justice Nandrajog said.

"I see no reason why the power distribution companies did not educate the consumers at whose premises electronic meters replaced the existing electro-mechanical meters and why they did not compel these consumers to install circuit breakers and segregate supply lines by removing the intermixing of neutral wires,'' the judgment said.

Stating that the new power regime envisages electronic meters at sub-stations to record electricity going into distribution lines, Mr. Justice Nandrajog said that by adding the units consumed by the consumers serviced through a particular sub-station, it could easily be seen whether the power distribution companies have sent bills for more units than those transmitted.

Dismissing the petition by Suresh Jindal, the Court said: "The petitioner has not been able to show that the electronic meter replaced was not as per Indian Standards Institute (ISI) specifications. "The meter was tested twice and was found to be in order, and in the teeth of intrinsic evidence, past consumption is of no use and cannot be used to determine the correctness of the electronic meter,'' the judgment said.

In his directions to the power distribution companies, Mr. Justice Nandrajog asked them to notify all consumers in whose premises electronic meters have been installed to check their wiring and ensure that no two connections have a common neutral wire. Before replacing existing electro-mechanical meters with electronic ones in future, wiring of consumers would be checked, and if it was noted that there was inter-mixing of neutral wires, a week's notice shall be given to them (consumers) to get the deficiency removed, the judgment said.

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