New Delhi, April 17, 2007

Press Release

For stealing power, Special Court sentences prominent factory owners to Tihar for two year; directs them to pay over Rs 4 lakh in penalties

· Special Court sends two Shahdara factory owners to Tihar for two year for stealing electricity;

· Factory owners also asked to pay over Rs 4 lakh in power theft dues

· Factory owners to remain in jail for two years or till the time they pay the penalty

· The duo were stealing 23 KW of power for electroplating and manufacturing of auto parts

In a significant judgment on April 13, 2007, the Special Court of electricity at Patparganj sent two prominent factory owners of Shahdara - Rajendra Kumar and Jagdish Singh - to Tihar Jail for a period of two years or till the time they pay the power theft dues amounting to over Rs 4 lakh. While Rajendra Kumar was directed by the Court to pay the penalty amount of over Rs 88,000, Jagdish Singh was directed to pay over Rs 3.3 lakh.

Earlier, in an inspection carried out by the BYPL Enforcement Team on June 13, 2003, both Rajendra Kumar and Jagdish Singh were caught stealing 5 KW and 18 KW of electricity respectively by bypassing the electricity meter. Investigations into the case revealed that BSES’ electricity meter at site was lying disconnected. The duo had rented the premise from one Lekhi Ram. While Rajendra Singh was using the stolen electricity for electroplating metal pars, Jagdish Singh was using the stolen electricity for manufacturing auto parts.

According to the provisions of the Indian Electricity Act, 2003, power theft bills of Rs 88,779 and Rs 3.3 lakh were imposed on Rajendra Kumar and Jagdish Singh respectively. Both the accused failed to pay the fines. Subsequently a FIR (No 238/03) was filed by BSES against the duo at the Gokulpuri Police station. On 2 May 2006, BSES and Delhi Police jointly filed a case against both the thieves in the Special Court.

“Since January 2005, BRPL and BYPL have filed over 1300 and 2000 cases in the Special Courts respectively. So far various Courts have sentenced over 160 power thieves to jail” said a BSES official. “Since July 2002, BSES has booked over 53000 cases of power theft and unearthed a power theft load of 3.17 lakh KW,” he added.

According to a BSES spokesperson “The increasing support from honest customers in the form of tips offs on power theft cases is as much a contributing factor in controlling power theft as is deployment of modern technologies like DT Metering, Geographical Information System (GIS) etc”

BSES, Delhi’s premier power distribution company, is committed to ensuring quality and reliable electricity supply to all its consumers.

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For further information please contact:

Prashant Dua	Chandra P Kamat
Corporate Communications	Corporate Communications
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