Wednesday 4 November 2015

Whether section 138 of Electricity Act, 2003 is compoundable ?




In the matter of   Smt. Bimla Gupta And Sh. Rakesh ... vs State And Anr, the Delhi High Court made the following observation in para 8 of the judgment:

“ It is clear that Section 135 speaks about the manner in which the cases of dishonest abstraction of energy have to be dealt with. Likewise, Section 138 also deals with the theft of electricity.”

Section 152 (1) of the Electricity Act,  2003 clearly provides that the Appropriate officer may accept from any consumer who is reasonable suspected of having committed an offence of theft of electricity punishable under this Act, a sum of money by way of compounding of the offences.

Also in the matter of Siddharth Bhandari  Vs. State of Karnataka the Assessing officer had accepted the compoundable charges for compounding of the case under section 135 and 138  of Electricity Act, 2003 and on that basis the petitioner had filed application for discharge under section 227 of Cr.P.C. before Session Court.  The Session Court dismissed the application of discharge holding that section 138 is not compoundable. Against the order of Session Court, the petitioner filed Writ Petition  in the High Court. High Court allowed the Writ Petition and set aside the order of Session Court discharging the petitioner.  Relevant para of the said judgment is produced below:


“Accordingly, the offence committed by the Company was compounded as per S.152 of the Electricity Act, 2003. In turn the alleged offences u/ss.135 and 138 of the Act have been compounded in the eye of law. This compounding having relation to Section 320 of Cr.P.C. amounts to acquittal in the eye of law.”

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