JUDGMENT : S.C. Datta, J. - The petitioner was prosecuted for theft of electrical energy u/s 39 of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910 and having been found guilty thereunder was convicted and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three months and to pay a fine of Rs. 500/- in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month. The appeal taken out as against the order of conviction and sentence was dismissed and the judgment and sentence passed by the trial Court were confirmed by the 2nd Additional Sessions Judge, Puri. 2. The prosecution case, in short, is that on 21.1.1988 Niranjan Pradhan. Assistant Engineer, Electrical, Vigilance, Bhubaneswar (P.W.3) along with vigilance squad staff of the O.S.E.B. and local police went to village Sanpur for detection of unauthorised consumption of electric energy. During visit of the village they found the appellant consuming electrical energy unauthorisedly by Hooking process from the nearby L.T.line. The Assistant Engineer, Electrical, (P.W.3) lodged a complaint with the Officer-in-charge, Bolgarh Police station and that is how the case against the appellant was started. 3. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner raises the question of maintainability of the prosecution on the ground that the Assistant Engineer, Electrical, was not competent to launch the prosecution. In support of his submission he has drawn my attention to Section 50 of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910 which reads as follows :- "50. Institution of prosecutions - No prosecution shall be instituted against any person for any offence against this Act or any rule, licence or order thereunder, except at the instance of the Government or an Electrical Inspector, or of a person aggrieved by the same." According to him the onus is upon the prosecution to establish that it had been launched correctly by the authorised person as specified in Section 50 of the Act and this having not been done, the conviction of the petitioner should not have been made in a defective prosecution. A bare reading of Section 50 would show that the prosecution must be initiated at the instance of :- (i) the Government, or (ii) the State Electricity Board, or (iii) the Electrical Inspector, or (iv) a person aggrieved. So far as the present case is concerned, admittedly, the prosecution has not been launched at the instance of the Government, the State Electricity Board or the Electrical Inspector. So far as the present case is concerned, admittedly, the prosecution has not been launched at the instance of the Government, the State Electricity Board or the Electrical Inspector. Learned Additional Government Advocate could not produce any authority so show that the Assistant Engineer, Electrical was conferred any power to file the prosecution. Learned Additional Government Advocate laid much emphasis on the words "person aggrieved" and wanted to highlight that P.W. 3 being an officer of the O.S.E.B. would be taken as a person aggrieved and as such was competent to lodge complaint against the petitioner. It appears that the self point arose in a case reported in Hanu alias Girish Ch. Behera Vs. State of Orissa, wherein a Bench of this Court held as follows : "......... A person aggrieved, in legal parlance, is a person who has the right to make a grievance. The right to raise the grievance is of the person in whom the right to the thing about which the grievance is to be made inheres. Section 39 is the offence of theft of electrical energy causing wrongful loss either to the State Government or the Electricity Board. The right to the energy vests in them as the case may be. It would also be any other owner of the energy under the Indian Electricity Act. The State Government or the Board are authorities who can be rightly said to be the person aggrieved and it is for such reason that they have been statutorily recognised as the person who could launch the prosecution. The Electrical Inspector is a person who is statutorily vested with different functions under the Act and is statutorily made a substitute. However without having such a right of grievance in himself, a person who is merely a servant of the person aggrieved is not a person aggrieved but he may be entitled to start the prosecution at the instance of a person aggrieved. Thus the Government, the Board, the Electrical Inspector or a person aggrieved can authorise another to lodge the F.I.R. of file the complaint but short of that either a complaint or an F.I.R. by an officer of the Government or of the Board or a subordinate of the Electrical Inspector would not become a person aggrieved ........" Identical question also arose in another case reported in Arakhita Patnaik Vs. State of Orissa wherein his Lordship also took a similar view. It appears from the aforesaid two decisions cited above that their Lordships look a note of the two decisions of the Apex Court reported in Tulsi Ram Vs. State of U.P., and Ram Chander Prasad Sharma Vs. State of Bihar and Another. I am in respectful agreement with the views taken by their Lordships and am of opinion that the prosecution having not been launched by any officer of the Board authorised on his behalf is wholly incompetent. 4. Learned counsel for the State submits that this objection about maintainability of the case was not taken by the petitioner either before the trial Court or before the appellate Court and as such, this Court should not entertain the ground now taken by the petitioner. It is no doubt true that these grounds were not urged before the Courts below. Nevertheless the fact remains that it is a matter going to the root of the prosecution. The Assistant Engineer, Electrical had no authority to launch the prosecution and the case proceeded upon his report. Since the Assistant Engineer, Electrical, had no authority to launch the prosecution, the entire proceeding is without jurisdiction and this Court should interfere in revision. 5. In the result, the revision is allowed and the conviction of the petitioner and sentence awarded are set aside. Final Result : Allowed