Consumer forum directs PSPCL to pay ₹15K to complainant

When I visited the PSPCL office to make the payment, officials asked me to deposit ₹29,000 along with current month charges. VARINDER KUMAR, complainant

Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has been asked by a district consumer disputes redressal forum, here, to pay a compensation of ₹15,000 to one of its customers for ‘harassing’ him.

PSPCL had sent him an inflated bill and disconnected his electricity supply, complainant Varinder Kumar had said.

The forum stated that PSPCL ‘wrongly and illegally’ sent an inflated bill of over ₹28,233 to Varinder Kumar, a resident of Kaki Pind near Rama Mandi.

Varinder had filed a complaint on August 12, 2016, saying that he purchased the property from Kultar Kaur, who had an electricity connection and they had even settled the balance.

He further said that PSPCL officials informed him about some error in their system and cut the supply, forcing him to issue a post-dated account cheque as security.

On July 2016, he received a mail from PSPCL that a bill amounting to ₹34,150 was prepared on May 13. Earlier, he had received a bill amounting to ₹18,100 in February. He had approached officials then for rectification.

“On June 29, I received a bill of ₹4040 for two months for consumption of 598 units. When I visited the PSPCL office to make the payment, officials asked me to deposit ₹29, 000 along with current month charges. They disconnected the electricity meter when I refused to pay,” he said in his complaint.

Refuting the allegations, a representative of PSPCL said that the connection was cut off for want of arrear of the electricity charges.

The forum directed Powercom to pay compensation and litigation charges to the tune of ₹15,000.