Pay Rs 350 cr dues in 3 months, Madras High Court to private players

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered private industrial establishments that use high-tension (HT) electricity to pay the pending dues of Rs 350 crore to Tangedco within three months.

In 2006, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission announced a concessional scheme for HT electricity consumers. Under this scheme, consumers could generate and use electricity on their own for their needs, and if they required additional electricity, they could obtain HT power from Tangedco at a concessional rate.

However, this concession resulted in heavy financial loss to Tangedco, and the scheme was subsequently withdrawn. Opposing this, private industrial establishments using HT power filed cases before the Madras High Court.

A judge delivered a verdict in favour of the private companies in 2018, and Tangedco was unable to collect nearly Rs 700 crore in electricity charges from 2013 to date. As a result, Tangedco and the state government filed appeals challenging the order. During the hearing of these appeals, the High Court had earlier granted an interim order allowing Tangedco to collect 50 per cent of the dues.

A division bench of Justice G Jayachandran and Mummineni Sudheer Kumar heard over 100 appeals filed by Tangedco in this matter. Senior Counsel P Wilson appeared for Tangedco, Richardson Wilson represented the TNERC, and counsels Rahul Balaji and Parthasarathy Pandiaraj represented the private industrial establishments.

Delivering the final judgment, the division bench set aside the single judge's order. The court further directed that private industrial establishments using HT electricity must pay the pending dues of Rs 350 crore to Tangedco within three months, and disposed of the petitions accordingly.