Rs 25 lakh fine, jail for convicts of power theft

Special electricity court convicted 2 Delhi residents of stealing electricity and sent them to 3 years’ RI.

Observing that “honest payers” of electricity bills “suffer” because of power thefts, a special electricity court on Wednesday convicted two South Delhi residents of stealing electricity and sent them to three years’ rigorous imprisonment.

Additional Sessions Judge Rakesh Tiwari sentenced Keshav Dev and Mukhtar, both residents of Tughlaqabad, for the offence for stealing over 27 KW of electricity for commercial purposes.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 25 lakh on the two.

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The court order comes in a December 2011 case, in which the two had been accused of stealing electricity at their Tughlaqabad residence through a fake meter. While a power-theft bill of Rs 11 lakh was issued, the accused had not paid the fine within the stipulated time.

“I am of the considered opinion that this is an economic offence, wherein, the society as a whole is the victim and the honest payer of electricity charges are the sufferers on account of the conduct of the convicts. Such convicts are getting unearned benefit at the cost of others, and as such, they deserve no leniency,” ASJ Tiwari said.

The court fined the two under u/s135 and 150 of the Electricity Act, 2003. The penalty includes Rs 15.5 lakh as fine and Rs 10 lakh as civil liability. “…The convicts have failed to discharge their onus that they were not using the energy for the preceding 12 months. They are directed to pay the amount of the theft bill,” the court said.

Kaunain Sheriff M

Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health. His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award. Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time. Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More

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