13.

10-04-2025 (Ct. no.01)

debajyoti IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA Circuit Bench at Jalpaiguri Civil Appellate Jurisdiction APPELLATE SIDE MAT 13 of 2025 +

IA NO:CAN/1/2025 Tahamina Begam Vs.

The State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Kunaljit Bhattacharjee, Mr. Haider Ali, Mr. Satyam Sarkar … For the Appellant. Mr. Nabankur Paul, Ms. Pratyusha Dutta Chowldhury … For the State.

Mr. Sudipta Kanta Bhowmik, Mr. Anirban Banerjee, Ms. Dipti Bhowmik … For WBSEDCL.

Dictated by Arijit Banerjee, J.

1. Learned advocate for the appellant says that service was attempted twice on the private respondent, but the envelope came back with the endorsement „addressee cannot be located‟.

2. The order that we propose to pass, will not affect the private respondent. Hence, we proceed to dispose of this appeal, treating the same as on the day‟s list, along with the connected application, by consent of the parties.

3. The private respondent has obtained electricity connection from West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL), in short, the electricity company. Apparently, the connection passes over the land of the appellant. When the connection was granted, the appellant was away from his property. Once he returned and found the aforesaid, he ventilated his grievance by making a representation to the electricity company. Not having received any response, he approached the learned Single Judge by filing WPA 91 of 2025.

4. We see that even before the learned Single Judge, the private respondent was not represented. However, the order that was passed was not to the private respondent‟s prejudice. The learned Judge effectively directed the electricity company to consider and dispose of the present appellant‟s representation after granting opportunity of hearing to the concerned parties. However, the learned Judge also observed that “in the event the decision for shifting electricity supply line is taken then all the consequential costs and charges payable in accordance with law shall be borne by the petitioner and only subject to payment of that cost, shifting of supply line shall be effected”.

5. The appellant is aggrieved by this portion of the learned Judge‟s order.

6. Learned advocate for the appellant says that the cost for shifting the electricity line, if that becomes necessary, cannot be imposed on the appellant. The law requires that the cost be borne by the State.

7. We do not wish to enter into the controversy. The appellant has no grievance regarding the other portions of the order. We, therefore, direct that the order of the learned Single Judge be implemented, subject to this modification that the observation against which the appellant has come up and which we have quoted above, shall be deemed to be deleted from the order impugned. If shifting of the concerned electricity line becomes essential, the costs will be borne by the party whose obligation it is, in terms of the applicable law.

8. The appeal and the connected application are, accordingly, disposed of.

9. Affidavits not having been called for, the allegations in the stay petition, shall be deemed not to have been admitted by the respondents.

10. All parties shall act on the server copies of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court.

11. Urgent photostat certified copies of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance of all requisite formalities.

(Biswaroop Chowdhury, J.) (Arijit Banerjee, J.)