Pvt discoms not public authorities: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court has stayed the Central Information Commission's direction that declared private discoms BSES Rajdhani Power, BSES Yamuna Power and North Delhi Power as public authorities under the Right to Information Act, 2005.

The Delhi government had also asked the discoms to appoint their own assistant public information officers, public information officers and the first appellate authority, as required under the Act.

While staying the operation of the decision dated March 3, 2006, and the consequential order passed by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission on April 3, 2006, Justice Pradeep Nandrajog said the private discoms were not prima facie "public authority" under the provisions of the Right to Information Act.

The discoms had contended that they didn't fall under the purview of "public authority" as they were not substantially financed by the Delhi government or the Centre.

Besides, none of the three private discoms were notified in the schedules to the Delhi RTI Act, as was done in the case of the power department of Delhi, DERC, Genco and Transco, the discoms' petitions, filed through Amit Kapur and Mansoor Ali Shoketm, said.

The issue before the court was determination of 'control' and being "substantially financed" in terms of Section 2(h)(d)(i) of the RTI Ac, which came into effect on October 12, 2005.

"Control" would mean a majority on the board of directors to influence the policies and working of the company and "substantially financed" would mean working capital apart from equity flowing in to sustain the activities undertaken by the company, the BSES counsels contended, adding the working capital and revenue finance didn't flow from the Delhi Power Supply Co Ltd or GoNCT

According to BSES, it had become the successor-in-interest of the erstwhile Delhi Vidyut board and a 51:49 joint venture company between BSES Ltd and GoNCTD after 51 per cent equity and management control was divested to Reliance Energy through international competitive bidding in 2002.

BSES had moved the court, seeking quashing of the CIC's order and declaring the touchstones in terms of the nature of financing as also the extent of financing for bringing it under the purview of "substantially financed" and "public authority" definitions.

The CIC had said the Delhi government participated directly or indirectly in its ownership, control and had a substantial part of its finance in the discoms, hence the discoms would qualify under "public authority".

One Sarabjit Roy had sought information relating to the DERC's constitution, status and powers besides details related to the three discoms and their distribution network capacities, revenue implications and new connections, disconnections and reconnections of industrial consumers.

However, BSES had refused to give information to the DERC, saying it was not a public authority and was not required to respond to such request.