The main legal point established in the judgment is the discretionary power of the authorized officer to accept the compounding fee and the requirement for a bilateral agreement between the complainant and the accused under Section 152 of the Electricity Act, 2003.

S. Muralidhar, J.

1. This petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘CrPC’) challenges an order dated 14th March, 2006 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Karkardooma, Delhi (‘Special Judge’) under the Electricity Act, 2003 (‘Act’) in Criminal Complaint No. 217 of 2005 whereby the application filed by the Petitioner under Section 152 of the Act for compounding the offences was dismissed.

2. The brief facts are that the Petitioner resides at premises bearing No. 119-C, 6 Lane, Central Avenue, Sainik Farm, New Delhi and states that he was drawing the electricity through the captive power plant installed by his brother. It is further stated that the wife of the Petitioner had applied for electricity connection on 23rd June, 1997 but till date the electricity connection has not been installed. On 24th August, 2005 the officials of the BSES Rajdhani Power Limited ("BRPL") visited the premises of the Petitioner and it was found that he was illegally using the electricity supply by directly tapping from the LV mains. On that basis the Petitioner was served with a direct theft bill for Rs. 2,52,074/-.

3. According to the Petitioner, he was never involved in any theft since there was no question of taking power supply from the Respondent No. 1 BRPL. Nevertheless without prejudice to his rights, he filed an application under Section 152 of the Act in the court of the learned Special Judge, Karkardooma prior to the filing of any complaint by the Respondent No. 1 BRPL. Para 7 of the said application, filed on 17th September 2005, reads as under:

7. Without prejudice and without admitting the factum of the inspection and legality of it, it is submitted that as per the Electricity Act, 2003 the offence can be compounded by the appropriate Government or any Officer authorized by it in this behalf may accept from the consumer or from any person, the compounding charges as per Section 152 of the Electricity Act, 2003. It is submitted for the residential purposes, Rs. 4,000/- per kw has been provided as compounded charges. It is submitted that as per the bill itself the use of electricity is residential thereforee the compounding charges for the entire load would be 12.005 x 4000 = 48,020.

8. It is submitted that the Applicant is ready and willing to pay a sum of Rs. 48,020/- to the Respondent towards the compounding of the offence alleged against the Applicant.

4. A reply was filed by the Respondent to the aforementioned application taking the following stand:

4. That it is further submitted that the Applicant/accused has not yet paid the theft bill. It is submitted that the Respondent will consider the prayer of the applicant after payment of the theft bill and cannot be forced to do so. It is submitted that the Respondent is contemplating filing of criminal complaint before this Hon’ble Court very soon.

It was also be mentioned that according to BRL that the application was not maintainable in the court of the learned Special Judge. They also contended that the total connected load found on inspection was 25.453 kw and not 12.005 kw as averred by the Petitioner.

5. By the impugned order dated 14th March, 2006 the learned Special Judge dismissed the application by the following order:

14. 3.06

Fresh application received by way of transfer from the court of Shri Chandra Gupta, learned ASJ. It be checked and registered.

Present: Deemed Addl. P.P. for the complainant. There is an application under Section 152 of the Indian Electricity Act for compounding the offence on behalf of the accused Section 152 of the Electricity Act is in derogation of the relevant provision of CrPC and it starts with a non-obstente clause. The very plain reading of the section authorizes the specified govt. or officials mentioned therein who can move for compounding a particular offence which is further fortified by sub-clause 3 and 4 of that section. The said nonobstente clause has been mentioned in the section because there