Supreme Court: In a special leave petition filed against the judgment and order dated 3-05-2024 passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, wherein the Court refused to entertain a Writ Petition against disconnection of the Bar Association’s electricity supply, holding that seeking free electricity is a freebie for the Bar Association, for their own purposes, the vacation division bench of Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti, JJ. has issued notice and in the meantime, directed the State to maintain the electricity supply of the Bar Association and recovery of electricity bills for the allocated premises till further orders.
Background:
The Bar Association was aggrieved by the action of State in disconnecting their electricity and raising electricity bills with huge amounts had approached the High Court, praying to direct the State to immediately pay the electricity bills of the Bar Associations, not to recover any electricity charges and to restore electricity forthwith and not to disconnect the same in future. Thereafter, the High Court via order dated 24-01-2013 had directed the State Government to pay the electricity charges for the electricity consumed by the electricity appliances in the notified Bar Rooms of the District Courts and other Courts situated within the territorial jurisdiction of the Gwalior Bench. Also directed the State Government to pay electricity charges for electricity appliances of the notified Bar Rooms of the MP High Court.
Aggrieved, the State filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, wherein the Court disposed of the SLP in terms of the communication of the State Government vide letter dated 27-05-2013, whereby the State stated that the proposal pertaining to payment of Electricity Bills of the Bar Association has been examined and the State Government has already allotted Rs. 65,59,657/- to the High Court.
However, despite the above-mentioned orders the state abruptly disconnected the supply of electricity to two buildings of M.P. High Court Bar Association.
Despite the various representations, letters and replies, the State arbitrarily and illegally disconnected the electricity, the Bar Association filed a writ petition to the High Court, wherein the Court via order dated 28-10-2015 directed the State to restore electricity connection of the Bar Association forthwith.
Thereafter, the State submitted that it wants to seek further instructions in the matter, as to why the amount released by the State Government has only been disbursed to the District Bar Association and not to the High Court Bar Association functioning in the Principal Seat at Jabalpur and the Benches at Indore and Gwalior. Thus, the matter was adjourned for clarification.
Thereafter, the impugned order was passed, leading to the present SLP.
Court’s order:
The Court noted that the impugned order dated 03-05-2024 passed by the High Court has been subjected to a challenge before this Court in an SLP, wherein an interim protection has been granted.
The Court issued notice and directed the State to maintain the electricity supply of the Bar Association and recovery of electricity bills for the allocated premises till further orders.
CASE DETAILS
| Citation: Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 13331/2024 Appellants : M.P. High Court Bar Association Respondents : State of Madhya Pradesh | Advocates who appeared in this case For Petitioner(s): Siddharth R Gupta, Adv., Amit Kumar Jain, Adv., Sanjay Singh, Adv., Shantanu Sharma, Adv., Amisha Devi, Adv., Mrigank Prabhakar, AOR For Respondent(s): Himanshu Sharma, AOR, Sidharth Gupta, Adv., Raghav Sharma, Adv., Satish Verma, Adv. |
CORAM :
Manoj Misra, J.
SVN Bhatti, J.
The post appeared first on .