Compliance with stipulated conditions is essential to avail reductions in electricity charges; benefits intended for genuinely closed units cannot apply to those operating on reduced capacity.

1. The Chief Engineer, Kerala State Electricity Board, its Special Officer (Revenue), and the Deputy Chief Engineer are the appellants before us in this Writ Appeal that impugns the judgment of a learned Single Judge dated 02.03.2022 in WP(C).No.10199 of 2014.

2. The brief facts necessary for disposal of this Writ Appeal are as follows:
The respondent writ petitioner was an HT consumer under the Electrical Section, Beypore bearing consumer code 5/519, with a contract demand of 65 KVA. The factory of the writ petitioner was under lockout from August to December 1995 and while the activities restarted immediately thereafter, the writ petitioner could not achieve the required levels of production for various reasons, including labour unrest, nonavailability of power supply owing to power cut etc. For the period from January 1995 to October 1998, the writ petitioner was served with a demand notice seeking payment of arrears of Rs.2,98,435/-, together with interest. It is not in dispute that the said amounts were not paid by the writ petitioner. Although, there appears to have been a series of litigation that was initiated at the instance of the writ petitioner challenging the demand of arrears of electricity charges from him, the same did not yield any favourable results. For the period from January 1995 to January 2005, the writ petitioner was served with yet another demand notice, this time seeking payment of arrears of Rs.19,72,291/-. The said amount also was not paid by the writ petitioner, thereby resulting in an enhancement of the arrear amount to Rs.26,06,602/- as evidenced by Ext.P21 notice dated 15.06.2007. While arriving at the said figure, the amounts that were covered by stay orders passed by this Court from time to time in the Original Petitions / Writ Petitions preferred by the writ petitioner were taken into account, together with the request of the writ petitioner for reduction in the rate of interest on the amounts demanded.

3. The Government had in the meanwhile, through a Government Order dated 21.02.2006, granted concessions by way of waiver of the minimum demand charges for electricity in respect of closed industrial units which had since commenced their operations on or before 31.03.2006. The waiver of minimum demand charges was in respect of electricity that was made available to the units during the period of closure. While the first Government Order dated 21.02.2006 granted the benefit of waiver of minimum demand charges to those industrial units that were closed, but had subsequently resumed their operations on or before 31.03.2006, the benefit was extended in subsequent years to units that had resumed their operations on subsequent dates. It is not in dispute that the benefit of the said Government Order dated 21.02.2006 was extended uptil 2012, by which time the writ petitioner's unit had also become fully functional. The writ petitioner on coming to know of the Government Order dated 21.02.2006, approached the Board with a request for waiver of the MD charges for the period from January 1995 to January 2005, inter alia, on the contention that his unit had also to be treated as a closed unit since the consumption of electricity in the unit was minimal and not sufficient for operating the machines therein. The contention, in other words, was that inasmuch as only such amount of electricity, as was required for lighting purposes at the factory, was consumed during the period between January 1995 and January 2005, the petitioner's factory had to be seen as a closed industrial unit for the said period, for the purposes of the government orders referred above.

4. The representations / appeals preferred by the writ petitioner were finally considered by t