Four transformers, 26 connections: Calcutta HC refuses a news channel its own CESC supply
Justice Om Narayan Rai dismissed the writ petition of a Kolkata news channel, holding that CESC need not run a low-tension line into one office of a building it feeds through a single high-tension bulk supply, and that bare denials of its safety reasons carry no weight.
A Bengali news channel lost power at its Kolkata office in June and asked CESC Limited for a connection in its own name. CESC said no, and on 12 November 2026 the Calcutta High Court upheld that refusal.
Justice Om Narayan Rai held that a low-tension line cannot safely be run into one office of a building that CESC supplies through a single high-tension bulk connection. He accepted that the channel has a right to electricity, and ruled that the right ends where the safety of the building begins.
A sixth-floor office goes dark
R.P. Techvision (India) Private Limited and another filed WPA 17012 of 2026 under Article 226 of the Constitution. The first petitioner owns Kolkata TV, a Bengali news channel. It occupies 16,000 square feet of super built-up space on the sixth floor of premises no. 18, Rabindra Sarani, Bowbazar.
Its lease, dated 30 December 2016, ran for nine years from 1 April 2017 and was to expire on 31 March 2026. The channel paid for electricity to respondent no. 4, the registered consumer of the building’s high-tension supply.
The channel said respondent no. 4 billed it exorbitantly and then stopped issuing bills for rent or electricity. On or about 23 June 2026, it said, respondent no. 4 cut its supply. It complained to the police on 4 July 2026.
It then applied to CESC for independent supply. CESC officials inspected the premises on 2 July 2026 and rejected the application. The ground was that the premises are fed by high-tension supply, so a separate low-tension connection could not be entertained.
The channel: supply is owed to the consumer
Mr Subhankar Nag appeared for the petitioners. He began with Section 43 of the Electricity Act, 2003, which requires a licensee to supply an owner or occupier within one month of an application. Citing K.C. Ninan v. Kerala State Electricity Board, he said supply is made to the consumer and not to the premises.
He argued that existing high-tension supply is no ground for refusal. A coordinate bench in Nabin Agarwal v. CESC Limited had allowed low-tension supply to part of a premises, and a Division Bench in Bhaskar Paul v. Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Limited, decided on 7 September 2022, rejected any blanket bar on a second supply line.
No inspection report was before the court, he said, and CESC could not add one later. He relied on Bharat Singh v. State of Haryana for the rule that a writ affidavit must carry evidence, and on Gopal Krishnaji Ketkar v. Mohamed Haji Latif for an adverse inference against a party that withholds its best evidence.
On safety, Mr Nag said separate wires and a separate meter leave no room for intermingling of supplies. A transformer already stands next to the building, he said, and nothing shows that low-tension supply would be dangerous.
He added that a right to electricity forms part of Article 21 and cannot be waived. If respondent no. 4 passes electricity on to tenants, he argued, it is trading in electricity without the licence Section 12 demands, and CESC is encouraging it.
CESC: safety is not negotiable
Mr Subir Sanyal, Senior Advocate, appeared for CESC. He said the petition itself admits that an inspection took place and that the refusal rested on the high-tension supply. The petitioners never asked for an inspection report, so there was no occasion to produce one.
Section 43, he argued, is not an absolute right and is subject to safety. Citing Akbar Reza v. CESC Limited, he said an occupier who can enjoy electricity through the existing supply is not entitled to demand an independent one, and the channel had chosen not to use it because of its dispute with respondent no. 4.
Respondent no. 4 had itself once asked CESC to convert the building’s high-tension supply to low tension. CESC declined, because there was no room for four new transformers and 26 new service connections. A letter of 24 July 2023 and CESC’s reply of 15 September 2023 recorded that exchange.
Mr Sanyal read paragraphs 7 and 8 of CESC’s affidavit-in-opposition, which describe the risk of fire and electrical hazard. He said the Central Electricity Authority (Measures relating to Safety and Electric Supply) Regulations, 2023, framed under Section 53 of the Act, contemplate only one mode of supply in a premises.
The petitioners’ reply, he noted, did not say why CESC’s technical reasons were wrong. He cited Jiyajeerao Cotton Mills v. Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board for leaving complex technical questions to experts. He also cited Ranjit Mall Kothari, Analysts Management and Smt. Kamala Arya, all decisions of this court that refused similar relief.
A right to demand, within safety limits
Justice Rai set out Section 43 and then K.C. Ninan. The Supreme Court there held that the duty to supply runs to the owner or occupier, and that the reference to premises only fixes the place of supply. The judge accepted that an applicant may demand electricity for the premises it occupies.
Whether supply can follow, he held, depends on the physical condition and technical receptivity of the premises. That includes the safety of the premises and the people in them. The infrastructure and the energising of a connection must be demonstrably safe, and a premises must be able to receive supply without threat to life or property.
Back-feed, paralleling and fire risk
The court then set out the hazards in paragraph 8(g) of CESC’s affidavit. Where high-tension and low-tension supply co-exist, there is a chance of back-feed that could cause a catastrophic accident. A failure of one source would leave the other carrying both loads, and the two sources could be accidentally paralleled through the consumer’s wiring.
The consumer’s installation would then act as a bus-bar between two dissimilar transformers. Load would be shared unequally and heavy current would flow through the installation. A circuit meant to be dead during an outage of the high-voltage supply could come alive, endangering anyone working on it.
The affidavit also warned of overloaded plant, overheating and fire, and of circulating currents from paralleled transformers. Under the 2023 Regulations, it said, one isolating device must be able to cut off the whole building in an emergency, which is impossible with supplies at two voltages.
A boilerplate denial and a District Engineer
The petitioners answered those paragraphs in paragraph 7 of their affidavit-in-reply. The judge found they were denied in a routine, boilerplate way. A specific traverse of a fact creates a triable issue, he said, but a bare denial of a legal reason or a scientific ground, without a specific counter-pleading, is barely of legal consequence.
The reasons, he held, came from an expert, since the affidavit was affirmed by the District Engineer of CESC’s Calcutta Central District, who is respondent no. 2. A denial with no reason why the grounds are wrong neither helps the petitioners nor dents CESC’s stand.
He also rejected the claim that the petitioners’ unit is not connected to respondent no. 4’s installation. The whole building takes high-tension supply, and the channel had drawn electricity through it until the disconnection. That could not have happened without connecting internal infrastructure.
No second-guessing the engineers
On the 2023 conversion request, the judge noted that serving the building through low tension would need four new transformers and 26 new service connections. Experts had weighed the load and the infrastructure and decided that supply should be through high-tension bulk mode only.
It would not be proper for the court to second-guess that decision, he said, unless a better decision by a better technical expert were placed before it. Nothing of the kind was on record. He quoted Jiyajeerao and Ranjit Mall Kothari, and observed that the inspection report there made little difference here, since the District Engineer swore the affidavit.
The missing inspection report, he held, did not matter. The petitioners admitted that an inspection took place, nobody disputes that the building is on high-tension supply, and the channel was told why a separate connection was refused. The reasons were in the affidavit.
The key observation came in paragraph 31:
“Scientific reasons are not equivalent to evidence.” (para 31)
Bharat Singh was therefore of no help, he said, because evidence proves a fact and not a principle, and every foundational fact stood admitted. Gopal Krishnaji Ketkar failed for the same reason.
Sub-metering is not unlicensed trading
The judge was not impressed by the Section 12 argument. Where technical, safety and security needs allow only high-tension supply to a building, he held, the registered consumer may step it down and share it among occupants on a proportionate cost-recovery basis. That is a lawful apportionment of bulk supply and is neither reselling nor trading.
The registered consumer acts as a conduit and is not meant to profit. It may recover transformer maintenance costs and similar dues. Any profit, or any arbitrary rate unrelated to the approved tariff, must be viewed seriously, and CESC must act against the consumer under the Act, including Section 126.
The complaint of overbilling was a factual dispute, he said. The channel could have complained to CESC, which would have been obliged to act against respondent no. 4. That, in his view, would serve the interest of a person drawing power through a sub-meter, in line with Section 61(d).
Article 21 and the earlier cases
Justice Rai accepted that the petitioner has a legal right to a connection in its own name, and that the right to electricity falls within Article 21. But the right is hedged by safety concerns for the building and its neighbours.
No person can claim a right to enjoy an amenity at the peril of another’s life, he said, and Article 21 cannot be read that way.
He held that Nabin Agarwal turns on its facts. The premises there were divided by independent structures or industrial sheds. The channel’s unit is an inseparable part of one building, a structure within a structure, and its independence depends only on the walls around it.
He distinguished Bhaskar Paul as well. The question there was whether two separate domestic connections could be given in a jointly owned property, and the mode of supply was the same. Here the petitioners wanted low-tension supply inside a building on high-tension bulk supply, and that is what poses the peril.
The Division Bench had also said a separate connection is open provided safety of life and property is ensured. When a coordinate bench later disposed of Mr Paul’s writ, it did not grant a separate supply, on CESC’s stand about narrow space and intermingling of wires.
The judge noted that Akbar Reza, Smt. Kamala Arya and Analysts Management all went the same way. In Kamala Arya, CESC had relied on Section 53(b), under which low-tension supply should not be given inside a high-tension area to reduce the risk of injury and damage.
Order
The court declined to direct CESC Limited to give the petitioner a separate metered low-tension supply. WPA 17012 of 2026 was dismissed with no costs.
The judgment was reserved after a hearing that ended on 1 September 2026 and delivered on 12 November 2026. Urgent certified copies were allowed on compliance with formalities.