*Jharkhand State Electricity Board Vs Ramkrishna Forgings Limited*
*Forum Supreme Court of India*
*Date 30th April, 2021*
*Sub- Whether upon reduction of load from 4000 KVA to 1325 KVA the respondent was liable to pay the Minimum guarantee charges as fixed by the electricity supply company.*

The apex court was dealing with a matter where the respondent had increased the load on various dates initially from 400 KVA to 4000 KVA in pursuance of various modification which was done to the original agreement in the year 2004 and in the year 2007 the respondent wanted the load to be reduced to 1325 KVA in view of frequent tripping and load shedding and consequential loss to the industry due to machinery breakdown etc. JSEB contended that the company was liable to pay minimum guarantee as the reduction was being done before the expiry of 3 years from the last increase in the load where as the company wanted three years to be computed from the original agreement which was entered in the year 2004. On these facts the court dismissed JSEB SLP by saying that the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (‘the Board’) is a monopoly supplier of electricity which has laid down its own terms and conditions, regarding which the consumer has no say or choice but to sign on the dotted lines, if it wants of get electricity load varied for running its industry. The Board is an instrumentality of the State. It has to be fair and reasonable. If the Regulations provide for contract load to be varied even through a written communication, then in our considered view, in all fairness, though fresh agreements may have been executed at the stage of enhancement of load of the same electricity connection, the same cannot be treated as anything but an extension/amendment or modification of the initial agreement granting the electricity connection, which in the present case would be the agreement dated 14.04.2004.

This judgement will be helpful to industries facing issue regarding Minimum guarantee charges with Electricity companies

Ramesh Patodia
30-04-21