The main legal point established in the judgment is the principle of res judicata, where the court emphasized that the petitioner's claims had already been considered and decided in previous proceedings, rendering the present writ petition not maintainable.

Vikash Jain, J.

Perused the office notes. Let the defects as pointed out by the office be ignored.

2. Heard the petitioner appearing in person, as well as learned counsel for the respondent-North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited. One copy of the writ petition has been served upon the respondent in Court today.

3. The present writ petition has been filed for redressal of three grievances, namely, statutory compensation for deficiencies of service in electricity should be paid; bills in the shape of long strips should be stopped; and meter cards should be provided.

4. At the very outset, this Court takes note that the petitioner had first approached the Consumer Forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 in Complaint Case No. 79 of 2014. The matter went up to the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Appeal No. 58 of 2015 and thereafter to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Revision Petition No. 2726 of 2015. Instead of raising the matter further before the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the petitioner initiated a second round of litigation by way of filing a writ petition bearing CWJC No. 18426 of 2016. After noticing the first round of litigation, this Court disposed of the writ petition vide judgment dated 12.01.2017 in the following terms -

"The pleadings herein, confirm that a second round litigation is being initiated by the petitioner through the present writ petition for seeking statutory compensation for deficiency of service. In my opinion, the petitioner having taken recourse to the remedy provided under the Consumer Protection Act and the statutory forum constituted thereunder, who have not found the claim suitable for awarding compensation which order of the consumer forum has been affirmed until National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, the petitioner if so aggrieved, may have a remedy before the Supreme Court by way of appeal under Section 23 of the Act but certainly a second round litigation by way of the present writ petition is held not maintainable.

The writ petition is accordingly disposed of."

5. Rather than taking a cue from the observations made in the judgment of this Court as aforesaid, the petitioner abandoned the matter and raised a third round of dispute before the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum, Muzaffarpur in Complaint No. 04 of 2017 and thereafter before the Electricity Ombudsman vide representation No. 01/2017. After discussion of the relevant facts, the Electricity Ombudsman held the representation to be not maintainable and dismissed the same as such. The present writ petition has been filed against this order of the Electricity Ombudsman.

6. A perusal of the order of the Electricity Ombudsman dated 30.06.2017 discloses that all the three grievances were urged before him but the petitioner's representation was found to be not maintainable. The claim of the petitioner on the issue of payment of statutory compensation has already been considered and decided earlier, and in view of the observations of this Court in CWJC No. 18426 of 2016 as noticed above, the instant writ petition is held to be not maintainable in this regard. As concerns the remaining two claims, namely with respect to non-issuance of bills in proper format and for issuance of meter cards, the petitioner has not brought any material on record to show that these claims were ever raised at any time prior to being raised before the Electricity Ombudsman, either before the concerned authority or before the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum. More significantly, these issues could have been raised before this Court for consideration while disposing of the earlier writ petition in CWJC No. 18426 of 2016, and even if not raised, the same are not barred by constructive res judicata. As a matter of fact, the writ petition is a rather skeletal and unstructured one without detailing the background facts of the case. The petitioner has appeared in person but does not seem to comprehend the nicetie