NAVANITI PRASAD SINGH, J.

1. With leave of Court a supplementary affidavit has been filed on behalf of the appellant bringing on record certain additional documents to show purchase of generator, exemption from sales tax under the Industrial Policy, 1995 of the State Government in respect of new industrial units, the income tax returns showing initially the firm to be a profit making concern and continuing production well after disconnection as well. Heard the parties at length.

2. The appellant is the unsuccessful writ petitioner/appellant. The facts are not in dispute. In 1995, the State Government came with the new Industrial Policy to give incentive of setting up of industries including small scale industry. There were manifold incentives. One of the incentives was in relation to exemption of sales tax for a period of 8 years from the date of production. The other was that industrial units would not be liable to pay Monthly Minimum Guarantee (hereinafter in short referred to as ‘MMG’) charges and/or Annual Minimum Guarantee Charges in respect of electricity. The effect of this later incentive was that the unit would be liable to be billed only on the actual consumption charges. As is well known that was a period when this State was under acute shortage of electricity. Industrial units, who required electricity, were reluctant to set up their industries for fear of having to pay huge amount of MMG charges without there being adequate supply of electricity. There was subsidy for installation of generator to ensure the units had sufficient electricity to run the unit. Keeping in view these incentives that were available under the Industrial Policy, 1995 which was up to 31.08.2000, the appellant firm, which is a partnership firm, was constituted, applied for registration as a small scale industry and it was duly granted the said registration by the General Manager of the District Industries Center, Patna. It then applied for registration to the Commercial Taxes Department and was duly registered. As it had intended to set up a unit for making plastic pipes for delivery of water, which has sophisticated machineries including electrical components thereof, it applied for and entered into an agreement on 14.01.2000 with the then Bihar State Electricity Board (hereinafter in short referred to as the ‘Board’), for supply of electricity as a low tension consumer having installed load of 50 HP i.e. 37.3 KW. The agreement has certain clauses which are of some importance. The first is that for shortfall or no supply of electricity, the consumer will have no claim against the Board. The second is that once an agreement is entered into, it will not be terminable before the end of 2 years. In other words, once a consumer entered into an agreement, he is stuck with the Board whether there is supply or no supply or deficient supply. There is yet another clause in the agreement which obliges the Board to supply electricity to the unit at 440 volts. Under Indian Electricity Rules, 1956 there is a statutory obligation on the part of the Board to do so as well. Having entered into the said agreement and having installed machineries including backup generator, the electric connection of the appellant’s unit was energized on 03.04.2000. On 01.06.2000, the appellant firm started commercial production as certified by the General Manger of the District Industries Centre, Patna. Having started production, the appellant firm felt difficulty in running the unit solely on electricity to be supplied by Board. The reason was simple. The supply voltage was so low that except of domestic lighting and domestic fan, the unit itself could not run. There were frequent disconnections. It managed to survive as the firm had its own captive generator. This fact of low voltage is evident from the report of the meter reader, as endorsed on the meter reading card, which has been recorded for first few months. The meter reader has recorded extremely low voltag