Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC) recently opposed the appeal filed by the West Bengal government, challenging the order of West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission in the Calcutta High Court.
The government has been seeking the reintroduction of the system of cross-subsidy in power tariffs under which large and industrial customers would partially pay for small and medium consumers.
The case came up for hearing in the court of Justice A N Ray and Justice H Banerjee.The bench observed that unless the Chief Justice formally assigned the case to the court, the bench would release the case on Monday.
BCC counsel S K Kapoor during his argument pointed out that the bench had no jurisdiction to hear the case as the case was an appeal against a statutory order. The bench held that as on Friday it had no jurisdiction to hear the case.
The counsel for BCC argued that the state government move was an eyewash intended to fool common people, particularly the rural population, ahead of the Panchayat elections slated for May.
He added that ERC had ended cross-subsidy in its last tariff award following an order passed by the Supreme Court. Neither the High Court nor ERC had any right or power to change the order any more.
The state government in its appeal asked for stay of the operation of the order of ERC passed on December 16, 2002, which fixed tariff for all categories of consumers at the same rate.
WBERC fixed tariff for year 2000-01 for all categories of consumers at Rs 3. 81 per Kwhr and for 2001-02 at the rate of Rs 3.90 per Kwhr.
The counsel for state government Saktinath Mukherjee alleged that the order of ERC displayed total non-application of mind and was violative of provisions of the ERC Act 1998.
CESC, All Bengal Electricity Consumer Association and Federation of Consumer Associations also supported the government
