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BSES legal team thrashed inside court

Staff Reporter

Police called in to control the situation at Tis Hazari courts

NEW DELHI: A legal tussle over payment of electricity bills turned ugly at the Tis Hazari courts here over the weekend when a plaintiff and his accomplice allegedly manhandled a legal team of the power distribution firm BSES, that included a woman lawyer, inside the court premises.

A BSES spokesperson claimed that during the hearing of the case the plaintiff and accomplices manhandled the members of the BSES legal team. "Looking at the gravity of the situation, the Additional District Judge informed the District Judge of the Tis Hazari Court of the deteriorating situation and requested for protection for the BSES legal team which was present on the court premises. The District Judge in turn called the police to control the situation."

Stating that the "Bisheshwar Nath & Company Vs BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL)" case dates back to December 1999 -- when the plaintiff filed a suit challenging an electricity bill of nearly Rs. 7 lakhs for the month of December -- "praying" that the meter was defective, BSES said on February 17, 2000, the judge allowed the plaintiff to deposit 75 per cent of the bills from December 1999.

After BSES took over the distribution business in its licensed area in Delhi, it appealed against the "75 per cent" order of a Tis Hazari court and even appealed in the High Court. The matter continued to shift from one court to another and it took over six years for the courts to arrive at the final judgement.

"A couple of days ago, the Additional District Judge of the Tis Hazari court gave the final decision and the plaintiff was also directed to deposit the remaining 25 per cent of the arrears to the bill amount for the period between February 17, 2000, and December 31, 2005, within one month from the date of the order," BSES said, adding that the amount in question had since accumulated to around Rs 3.43 crores.

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