Skip to main content

Offences Relating To Theft Of Electricity Compoundable

The Supreme Court in SURESH GANPATI HALVANKAR vs THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA & ORS., setting aside a judgment dated March 30, 2017 of the Bombay High Court, held that the offence of ‘interference with meters or works of licensee’ under section 138 of the Electricity Act of 2003 also relates to the theft of electricity and hence, is compoundable under section 152 of the Act.

In the impugned judgment, The High Court compounded the offence of theft of electricity under Section 135 of the Electricity Act, dealing with tapping of electricity lines, tampering/damage/destruction of an electric meter or related equipment, usage of electricity through a tampered meter and use for an unauthorised purpose, but refused to do so qua Section 138 of the Electricity Act, stating that though the said section deals with maliciously injuring electric meters, since it does not directly relate to the offence of theft it would not be covered by Section 152 of the Electricity Act.

The bench stating that the High Court has taken a very narrow view of Section 152  further observed, “...the language of Section 152 specifically states ...’an offence of theft’ which according to Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary, as well as Ramanatha Iyer’s Law Lexicon, states that one meaning of ‘an’ is ‘any’. If the word ‘any’ is substituted for the word ‘an’ in Section 152, it becomes clear that any offence relating to the theft of electricity is also within the ken of Section 152. Section 138 also relates to theft of electricity, be it through maliciously injuring meters, and is therefore also within Section 152, and can therefore be compounded”.

Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/offences-relating-theft-of-electricity-compoundable-sc-read-order/

Comments

Post a Comment

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/
Post a Comment
Read more

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...
Post a Comment
Read more