Suit filed against electricity Board held not maintainable.

1. The defendants are the appellants.

2. The respondent/plaintiff filed a suit for declaration, permanent injunction and mandatory injunction.

3. The case of the plaintiff is as follows: The plaintiff college of Engineering was started in the year 1984. The Shanmugha Polytechnic was started on 6.9.1984. Shanmugha College of Engineering is affiliated to the Bharathidasan University, Trichy. At present there are about 1200 students studying in both the college and polytechnic. The Polytechnic and the college has three service connections Nos.93, 98 and 102 while the students’ hostel has a separate service connection No.138. The Electricity Board has classified the service connections 93 and 98 under Tariff VII applicable to Educational Institutions. The service connections 102 and 138 are wrongly classified under tariff IV and IX. All the above four service connections should be rightly classified under tariff No.VII. Service connection 102 caters to the various laboratories in the college. Service connection No.138 is purely a lighting load for the benefit of the students in the hostel. The Electricity Board has been requested to bring service connections 102 and 138 under tariff No.VII.

4. As per clause 3.01 of the terms and conditions of supply, additional, loads upto 130 HP can be connected to a service connection without the permission of the Electricity Board. The college approached the Electricity Board to change the meters in Service connections 93 and 98 so as to enable the institution to connect additional loads to these service connections instead of connecting to the single service connection 102. The plaintiff also requested the Electricity Board to instal suitable metering arrangements. The Electricity Board did not take any action in this matter. In the same letter, it was reiterated that utilisation would not exceed 50 per cent of the total connected load for the time being. The Assistant Executive Engineer served a notice on the plaintiffs staff member informing about the proposed inspection to the service connection No.102 on 19.12.1991. Accordingly, he made inspection. There is no violation of any terms and conditions of service connection. The additional load connection to service connection 102 was made in the year 1988 itself, only after informing the defendants’ department that the actual load will not exceed 50% of permitted limit. The plaintiff has expressed its willingness to have service connections in H.T. line in case the Electricity Board insists on it.

5. After inspection of the Engineer, the defendants have filed Caveat O.P. on 22.1.1992 as if the plaintiff is likely to move the Court for orders. After that the Electricity Board served a show cause notice dated 28.1.1992 on the plaintiff on 29.1.1992 as if there is excess load connection by 115-72 H.P. The plaintiff is not admitting the correctness of the contentions raised in the show cause notice. In fact, the plaintiff is demanding the levy under tariff VII instead of tariff IV as it happens to be an educational institution and requesting refund of the excess tariff collected so far. It is alleged in the Caveat Petition that the plaintiff has removed three capacitors attached to main and is keeping them idle. It is a malicious allegation. The capacitors are fixed by the plaintiff alone at its cost and it has to be periodically replaced or serviced, and for that purpose they will be disconnected whenever unavailable. Attaching capacitors to supply connections have nothing to do with the recording of actual consumption by the meter. The capacitor only regulates the supply. In any educational institution, though all the machineries are available, all of them are not put into simultaneous use as in factories. The utilisation at any time would be only 40% of the connected load as the machinery are put to use purely for demonstration purposes. The plaintiff also requested the Electricity Board to instal maximum utilisation of power at any g