Telangana, Andhra Legal Scuffle Over Power Dues: Telangana High Court Asks Centre to Submit Minutes of Meeting.
(Judicial Quest News Network)
By. Syed Ali Anjum Sadiq
Hyderabad : ( 16, May 2023), In a significant development the Telangana High Court asked the Power Secretary of the Union Government to submit a detailed report including the minutes of the meeting which was held on August, 29 last year and had decided to slap notices on Telangana discoms to pay 7,000 crore arrears.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N Tukaramji was hearing the petition filed by Telangana Discoms which challenged the Notice issued on August, 2022 by the Central Power Ministry seeking to clear the dues.
Council for Telangana Utilities Y. Rama Rao strongly objected the Cnter government’s step-motherly treatment towards Telanagana by the Union Government.
He submitted that the approach of Union government was highly unfair and unacceptable in the on-going matter.
It was further submitted that the Centre government had issued a order in August last year directing government of Telangana to pay the due amount of Rs. 3441.78 crore towards the principle amount and an amount of Rs.3315.14 crore towards the late payment surcharge to the Government of Andhra Pradesh within a time period of 30 days.
The petitioners have contended that without issuing the notice to other side (Telangana) which is against the natural justice, authorities cannot implement the orders.
Further it is also submitted that Section 92 of Power Act, in section 92 of the principal Act, after sub-section (5), the following sub-section
shall be inserted, namely:— “(6) Every proceedings before the Appropriate Commission shall be decided expeditiously and with the endeavour to dispose the proceedings within one hundred and twenty days and in the event of delay, the Appropriate Commission shall record the reasons for delay beyond one hundred twenty days.”.
He further submitted that when the Andhra Pradesh was united there were several power facilities set up all over the state which are needed to be compensated that are now in Andhra Pradesh because the investment in those facilities were done by belongs to us as well.
The Council further said that 12th meeting of standing committee of the Southern Zonal Council (SZC) ignore the pendency of these writ petitions which clearly reflect that the matter was sub-judice but clearly record in the minutes as to writ petition which was filed by state of Andhra Pradesh, which was subsequently withdrawn, as if unilateral action of State of Andhra Pradesh would end the subject matter being sub-judice.It was expressly decided in that meeting that the decision will be kept “pending”.
Ram Rao further submitted that in addition to this , there are arrears pertaining to employees’ Thrift trust funds, PF, Pensions Etc.It is unfair on the part of the Centre to single us out and burden us with arrears and deadlines.
The division bench asked the authorities to submit the minutes of the aforesaid meeting to ascertain what exactly had transpired in the meeting.
It is also mentioned that after the bifurcation of the sate on June 2, 2014, power generation was common and handled by AP till 2017,
The Union Power ministry had calculated the dues to be paid by Telangana to AP for generating and supplying power for these three years and asked Telangana Discoms to pay AP power utilities3,500 crore towards power bills and an additional 3,500 crore as surcharge for late payment.
Aggrieved by the heavy burden of Rs.7000 crore , Telangana Power companies approached the high court challenging the decision and sought interim protection from any coercive process but said both parties were free to arrive at a negotiable settlement.
It is clearly mentioned in the AP Re-organization Act 2014, in Twelfth Schedule sub-section C (2), existing PPAs with respective DISCOMs shall continue for both on-going projects and projects under construction The power generated from the plants located in AP and TS have to be distributed in the ratio of 53.89:46.11 to TS and AP respectively.
The next hearing date is on 9, June, 2023.
