Delhi Jal Board fined for harassing consumer

Water utility to pay Rs 8,000 to Najafgarh resident for failure to supply water.

Terming harassment of citizens by public authorities as “socially abhorrent and legally impermissible”, the Delhi State Consumer Commission has ordered the Delhi Jal Board to pay Rs 8,000 to a Najafgarh resident for its failure to supply drinking water.

A bench comprising commission chairman Justice BA Zaidi and member VK Gupta dismissed the DJB's appeal against the January 20, 2011 order of a district consumer forum that had asked the DJB to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation and Rs 3,000 as litigation charges to complainant Raj Kumar.

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The commission rejected DJB's argument that it was supplying water through water tanks regularly as demanded by the complainant.

"The net result is that drinking water facility is not provided properly to the complainant and the villagers. It may be pointed out here that harassment of a common man by public authorities is socially abhorrent and legally impermissible," the commission said.

Kumar, a resident of Khera village in Najafgarh, had filed a complaint in 2009 that DJB was not supplying sufficient water despite regular payment of charges for his legal water connection.

The amount awarded for harassment, mental agony and sufferings by public authorities would not only compensate and satisfy an individual, but would also help in curing the "social evils", the commission said in its verdict.