The Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has challenged the jurisdiction of High Court to review the power tariff hike enforced by it.
Defending its decision to hike the power tariff in the state, OERC, through an affidavit, has asserted that the Commission being a quasi legislative body, the High Court’s jurisdiction to review its decision is “limited”.
A public interest litigation (PIL) with a prayer to roll back the tariff hike is currently being heard by the Orissa High Court. The court has stayed the implementation of OERC decision, which was to come into force from April 1, till April 25.
Urging the High Court to reject the PIL and vacate the stay, OERC said, the scope of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution in respect of tariff order is limited as has been held by the Supreme Court on several past orders. The affidavit has been filed by OERC secretary P K Swain.
“Electricity being a technical subject and the Commission being an expert body, it duly considered the relevant technical, financial and legal issues involved in fixation of tariff”, the affidavit said, adding that in determining tariff, the Commission acts as a statutory quasi-legislative body and has to balance the interest of various stake-holders like licensees, consumers, generators, public authorities and the government.
It defended the tariff hike claiming that the same has been done to safeguard the interest of power consumers and was necessary to supply uninterrupted power supply in the State.
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The affidavit maintained that the interim stay on collection of hiked tariff would have several devastating implications on the financial aspects of bulk suppliers of power like Gridco and power distribution companies in Orissa.
It said the distribution companies in the state would purchase 22,477 million units of electricity from Gridco to meet the power demand in 2011-12 at an approved price of Rs 2.31 per unit.
If there is no tariff hike this year, Gridco would collect only Rs 1.68 (pre-revised) per unit from the distribution companies and it (Gridco) would not be able to pay the power generators Rs 1413.35 crore during the year, the affidavit said.
“This may lead to load regulation by power generators which would impact the distribution companies by way of load shedding of around 6,720 million units in the year”, the OERC affidavit said adding that about 30 per cent load is to be restricted for both subsidized and unsubsidized consumers in the state.