HC rejects plea against power consumption charges for law chambers

The Madras High Court on Thursday refused to entertain a case filed by Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTNP) co-chairman G. Mohana Krishnan seeking a direction to Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) to not insist upon electricity consumption charges for the 550 law chambers which were not used by the lawyers between March 22, 2020 and February 28, 2021 due to COVID-19.

Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said the issue scarcely deserved any attention since lawyers were certainly more privileged than many other sections of society who were affected very badly due to COVID-19. Further, observing that lawyers could espouse their grievances, if any, individually, the Bench said the petitioner could not be permitted to espouse the cause of all lawyers in general. In his affidavit, the litigant pointed out that the High Court administration had kept the law chambers locked for nearly a year and the lawyers were not permitted to access them until March 1 this year. However, now, many lawyers complained that Tangedco was demanding a lumpsum payment of around Rs. 5,000 calculated on the basis of a commercial rate of Rs.425 a month for restoring the disconnected power connections.