16/08/2014

 

viewers' voice

Will the CM clarify

 

A BiharTimes Reader

 

Politicians are rarely truthful or candid about the performance of their governments but you have shown tremendous courage and forthrightness in your pronouncements. News papers quote the CM as saying that despite your being a minister your family had to bribe the engineers of the Electricity Board to get the electricity bill rectified.By the mere fact of speaking up about the ubiquitous corruption in the electricity board you have taken the first bold step towards fighting it.Now you may like to ponder and let the people of Bihar know whether the following decisions of your government in the last few years have helped the public cause or abetted the activities of the dishonest consumers and their corrupt patrons.

 1)   The government disbanded the decades old electricity vigilance cell, specially created to curb theft of electricity committed by big consumers in collusion with the engineers of the Bihar State Electricity Board. The Board may have lost approximately   Rs 7000 crores   by way of theft and transmission during the last five years.

2) The engineers of the Board have been exempted from action under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 even if they are found colluding with consumers in the theft of energy?

3) Under clause 11.4 of the Bihar Electricity Supply Code 2007 consumers caught stealing electricity through a tampered meter can make a voluntary declaration and escape criminal case and punitive fine. Under this provision the Board   dropped the criminal case lodged by vigilance electricity cell against an influential consumer and the engineers who had abetted his crime and waved the punitive fine of 20 crores. Other influential consumers were invited and allowed to get their tampered meters regularized. During the same period hundreds of ordinary consumers with tampered meters were raided, prosecuted and sent to jail for paltry amounts.  The provision, places enormous discretion -and thus huge opportunities for corruption- in the hands of the engineers of the Board.

4)  The Board   had charged Satyendra Ray for h theft of electricity worth Rs 60, 000. The Hon’ble Patna High Court, in 2009, quashed the FIR on the plea of the accused that police did not have the power to institute a case of theft of electricity. The Bihar State Electricity Board  moved the Hon’ble Supreme Court (Cr Appeal no 2133 of 2010 arising out of SLP (cr.) No 6823 of 2009 Assistant Electrical engineer Vs Satyendra Kumar Rai)  and contended that police had all the powers to institute and  investigate cases of electricity theft  etc. The Hon’ble Supreme Court set aside the order of the Hon’ble Patna High Court.Satyendra Rai was charge sheeted and sent to jail.

5)  Immediately thereafter, in a case of electricity  theft involving Rs. 20 crores, the BSEB  told the Hon’ble Patna High Court (CWJC 921/09, CWJC 23348 /09,) that the vigilance electricity cell (police) has no powers to institute cases of   electricity theft. The Hon’ble High Court quashed the FIR and the consumer and the former chairman of the BSEB accused of causing pecuniary advantage to him walked away. The BSEB   suppressed the Supreme Court judgment from the High Court and asserted before the High Court that the police did not have the authority to institute a case of electricity theft. The FIR was quashed by the Hon’ble High Court .SLP in the in a matter which involved Rs . 20 crores was not moved by the government.

6) Four other cases involving theft of electricity and corruption worth hundreds of crores filed earlier by electricity vigilance cell were similarly quashed by the Patna High Court but these also were not taken to the Hon’ble Supreme Court.


comments powered by Disqus






traffic analytics