Judgment of acquittal by lower court held perverse and set aside.

The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board is the petitioner herein. On the complaint of the petitioner, the Arcot police filed the charge sheet in C.C.No.172 of 1991 against one Parthasarathy, the respondent herein, for the offences under Sec.39 and 44(1)(c) of the Indian Electricity Act. By the judgment dated 24.9.1996, the learned Judicial Magistrate, Arcot acquitted the accused. Hence, this revision.

2. The case of the prosecution is this:

A.R. Parthasarathy, the accused in this case is the owner of the Lakshmi Vinayaga Saraswathi Rice Mill situate at Arcot town. He is the consumer of the electricity. On 20.12.1990, the officials of the Electricity Board inspected the meter and service connection in S.C.No. 4325 fitted in the rice mill. The accused was found to be dishonestly extracted, consumed and used electric energy of 42,009 units and caused loss of Rs. 2,01,643 to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, by maliciously injuring the meter installed by the Electricity Board and by tampering the seals of the said meter fixed by the Board, after replacing bogus seals in the place of seals already fixed. On the basis of this accusation, P.W.7, the Sub Inspector of Police investigated the case and filed the charge sheet for the offences stated above. After trial, the learned Judicial Magistrate, Arcot acquitted the accused on the ground that it cannot be said that the accused only injured the meter and illegally extracted the electric energy, as there is no direct evidence.

3. Mr. Jayakumar, the learned counsel representing Mr. Rengabashyam, appearing for the petitioner in this revision, challenging the judgment of the trial court, would press into service that the trial court has misinterpreted Sec.39 and 44 of the Indian Electricity Act, even though the prosecution has proved that the presence of artificial means in the meter and that there was dishonest extraction of electric energy by the accused.

4. Mr.Suresh, representing Mr.Udayakumar, appearing for the respondent, would resist the said submission, in justification of the impugned judgment.

5. At the outset, I must mention that the learned Judicial Magistrate, Arcot has exceeded his limit by referring various irrelevant materials which were not placed before the court during the trial, and allowed himself to be in complete prejudice, as a result of which a flagrant miscarriage of justice has been caused by acquitting the accused without any effort to understand the meaning of Sec.39 and 44(1)(c) of the Indian Electricity Act.

6. Let me, at the end, would point out those irrelevant considerations, of course, with judicial restraint, Before that it shall be proper for me to highlight as to how the learned Magistrate has given a perverse finding without taking into account the two sections of the Act, as indicated above.

7. The Assistant Executive Engineer who inspected the rice mill, found that the meter cover seal in the service connection was not genuine. This is clear from Ex.P-1. As per the report of P.W.3 the Executive Engineer, the seals found in the meter on the date of inspection were compared with the original seals and the said seals were found to be completely different and as such, the two seals found in the meter were bogus. Ex.P-3 series, the meter reading cards, would show that per year, the rice mill used to consume 68768 units, but in the current year, the meter reading would show only 26759. Ex.P-6 is the statement given by the accused before the officials of the Electricity Board to the effect that the meter was standing in his name and he was running the rice mill and that, both the electric meter and the consumption of energy were under his control. Ex.P17, the forensic report on analysing the meter and seals would show that the seals were not genuine and they were found to be bogus, About the aspect regarding the presence of artificial means in the meter, the witnesses P.W.1 to P.W.3 and the forensic expert P. W.6 would give clear details while they we