NE LEGAL BUREAU
CHENNAI, JULY 2
The Madras High Court on Thursday declined to entertain a PIL seeking direction to state-run power utility TANGEDCO to allow domestic consumers to pay the electricity bill till July 30 in view of Covid-19 induced lockdown.
A division bench of Justices R Subbiah and Krishnan Ramaswamy dismissed the petition by C Rajashekaran, after recording the submission of the additional advocate general P H Arvind Pandian that more than 90 per cent of the domestic consumers have already paid the charges.
The issue relates to the plea seeking TANGEDCO to extend the time to pay electricity charges at least till July 30. When the matter came up for hearing, Pandian noted that of the 1.35 crore consumers 93.75 per cent have already made the payment for consumption during March while it was 91.5 for April and over 86.38 per cent for May.
This shows that the petitioner was not arguing for the majority cause, Pandian added. In its detailed response filed on Wednesday, the TANGEDCO had ruled out any further extension of time for domestic consumers to pay electricity charges. The corporation submitted that it has been maintaining and operating its distribution system throughout the state 24×7 despite lockdown and ensuring power supply to the departments fighting the pandemic. It also claimed that it was incurring fixed costs and other expenditure on salary of employees despite the delay in cash flows on account of extension of time.
The government had already extended the last date for remitting electricity bill for the month of March to July 15.
