ORDER

M.B. Shah, President - The only question which requires consideration in these Revision Petitions is whether under the Electricity Act, 2003, the officers of the electricity company are empowered to arbitrarily direct the consumers to deposit the amount according to their whims with a threat that failure to deposit the said amount would result in disconnection of electricity power or they would be prosecuted

2. In our view, the Electricity Act, 2003 (hereinafter referred to as the Act for brief) nowhere empowers the officers concerned to adopt such an arbitrary procedure. Under the Act, in the case of alleged unauthorised use of electricity, procedure prescribed under Section 126 of the Act is required to be followed. If that procedure is not followed, it is to be highlighted that the Act nowhere empowers the officers of the electricity company to act according to their whims and harass the consumers at large.

3. These Revision Petitions would illustrate how the officers exercise their powers arbitrarily.

4. In all these cases, it is alleged that there was unauthorized use of electricity by some means or the other, by the consumers. This was detected when the officers visited t