Legal Views

The High Court of HP in Kundlas Loh udyog  and others versus Himachal Pradesh Electricity Board Limited and another CWP No 12178 of 2024 a/w connected matters rejected the pleas of the  petitioners mainly industries were that when the government of HP had agreed  to provide subsidy to the consumer under section 65 of the Electricity Act, 2003 before the HP Electricity Regulatory Commission (HPERC) while issuing the  tariff order for Financial Year 2024-25, the government cannot take u turn and withdraw the subsidy  in the mid of the year. notably, the  GoHP has withdrawn the subsidy which was agreed  to be paid in the tariff i.e. ARR of the HP DISCOM, keeping in view the financial health of the state of economy of the HP, resultantly the tariff  of the  industrial consumers was increased by  Rs 1/per Unit of energy.  initially the court gave interim reliefs to the petitioners and stayed the operation of the order of the withdr...

    The law has already been settled by the Supreme Court in catena of its decision,  one of which is UP Power Corporation Ltd  and others  versus Anis Ahmed  Civil Appeal No. 5466 of 2011 decided on July 1, 2013 .  (para no 24), wherein the  court has held that the services purely for the commercial purpose are not under the ambit and scope  of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 which is pari materia with Consumer Protection Act, 1986. 

 The High Court of HP in Rishi Raj versus state of HP and other CWP No 1128 of 2017 decided on 01-08-2024 has categorically held that forest land cannot be put to use of the non-forest purpose, as has been defined and explained in section 2of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.  further it was held that the forest land or portion  thereof for the cultivation of tea, coffee, spices, rubber, palms, oils bearing plants, horticulture crops or medical plants and even any purpose other than reafforestation, shall amount to  using such land for non-forest purpose. the  court directed the revenue authorities to identify the the government/forest land by fixing permanent  boundary marks of the such land  and to remove the other encroachments.  https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/himachal-pradesh-high-court-affirms-eviction-from-forest-land-554589.pdf