Suresh Ganpati Halvankar vs State of Maharashtra & Ors.

Nature of service,"Rate at which the sum of money for compounding to be collected per Kilowatt KW)/Horse Power (HP) or part

thereof for Low Tension (LT) supply and per Kilo Volt Ampere (KVA) of contracted demand for High Tension

(HT)

(1),(2)

Industrial Service,twenty thousand rupees;

Commercial Service,ten thousand rupees;

Agricultural Service,two thousand rupees;

Other Services,four thousand rupees;

at liberty and no proceedings shall be instituted or continued against such consumer or person in any criminal court.,

(3) The acceptance of the sum of money for compounding an offence in accordance with sub-section (1) by the Appropriate Government,

or an officer empowered in this behalf shall be deemed to amount to an acquittal within the meaning of section 300 of the Code of Criminal,

Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974).",

(4) The Compounding of an offence under sub-section (1) shall be allowed only once for any person or consumer.""",

It will be seen that both Sections 135 and 138, which impose a maximum sentence of three years, both deal with theft of electricity. The High",

Court has taken a very narrow view of Section 152 by stating that an offence of theft is related stricto senso to Section 135 since that section alone,

deals with the offence of theft, but would not specifically refer to Section 138 which only indirectly relates to the offence of theft. Both the",

respondent as well as the petitioner before us have moved the High Court stating that Section 138 would also be so subsumed and have continued,

to argue the same position before us. We are of the view that this is correct in law inasmuch as the language of Section 152 specifically states,

......""an offence of theft"" which according to Stroud''s Judicial Dictionary, as well as Ramanatha Iyer''s Law Lexicon, states that one meaning of",

''an'' is ''any''. If the word ''any'' is substituted for the word ''an'' in Section 152, it becomes clear that any offence relating to the theft of electricity is",

also within the ken of Section 152. Section 138 also relates to theft of electricity, be it through maliciously injuring meters, and is therefore also",

within Section 152, and can therefore be compounded.",

In this view of the matter, we set aside the impugned judgment passed by the High Court. We have been informed by learned counsel for the",

intervenor that the appellant before us has been prosecuted for perjury and that the proceeding in that behalf is pending. We say nothing about the,

aforesaid proceedings. In that view of the matter, the appeal stands allowed.",

I.A.No.117535 of 2017 is disposed of accordingly.,