The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the Arvind Kejriwal Government’s decision to give a 50 per cent waive off on non-payment of power tariffs on the grounds of alleged inflated bills during his civil disobedience movement on the issue.
The Government had also waived off the penalties imposed on these consumers for non-payment of bills.
A Division Bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Siddarth Mridul stayed the decision till March 18, the next date of hearing, asking the Government to file a detailed affidavit stating its current stand on the issue.
Earlier, the Government filed a short affidavit saying that it was a Cabinet decision to waive off 50 per cent of tariffs of those consumers who held back the payment during the period. It also filed a report of the Power Department through Deputy Power Secretary in the matter.
The stay order came on a public interest litigation challenging the subsidy given by the then AAP government to those consumers who had defaulted on payment of their power bills from October 2012 to December 2013.
The petitioner, Vivek Narayan Sharma, an Advocate-on-Record in the Supreme Court, submitted that the subsidy granted to the defaulting power consumers would spread chaos and anarchy. He sought quashing of the decision.
