Duo gets 2 years for power theft

NEW DELHI: A special court in the capital on Tuesday sentenced two factory owners in East Delhi to two years in jail, for stealing electricity. The factory owners from Shahdara area of the city have also been asked to pay over four lakh rupees in power theft dues, BSES officials said. They will remain in jail for two years or till they pay the bills slapped on them.

Earlier, in an inspection carried out by the BSES enforcement team on June 13, 2003, both Rajendra Kumar and Jagdish Singh were caught stealing five KW and 18 KW of electricity respectively by bypassing the meter. Power theft bills of Rs 88,779 and Rs 3.3 lakh were imposed on the duo. Both the accused failed to pay the fines and an FIR was filed by BSES against the duo at the Gokulpuri police station.

On May 2, 2006, BSES and Delhi Police jointly filed a case against both the power thieves in the special court.

“Since Jan 2005, BSES Yamuna Power Limited and BSES Rajdhani Power Limited have filed over 1,300 and 200 cases in the special courts. So far, various courts have sentenced over 160 power thieves to jail,” the BSES official said.