By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, March 11, 2015 :

The Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission [OERC] once again has come for a rap from the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity [ATE] for what it called, “..the Commission is habitual of flouting the judgments of this Tribunal”.

Hearing an appeal in the matter of Escrow relaxation arrangement by Western Electricity Supply Co. of Orissa and others, Justice Surendra Kumar, Judicial Member and T. Munikrishnaiah, Technical Member, ATE on Monday flayed the Odisha regulatory body’s defiant attitude.

“Without commenting on the behavior of Orissa Commission, as has been experienced by this Tribunal for more than one year, we are constrained to say that the Orissa Commission is not complying with the judgment of this Tribunal in many cases and the Commission is habitual of flouting the judgments of this Tribunal”, the ATE’s order said.

The ATE in November last year reprimanded the OERC for the latter’s ‘total lack of judicial approach’. The State Commission has been refusing to implement the ATE’s directives from 2006-07 to 2014-15, on the pretext that appeals have been filed against the ATE orders in the Supreme Court. But the Apex Court refused to grant any stay on the ATE order. During these proceedings before the ATE, the OERC had filed applications before the Supreme Court seeking a stay, which was rejected by the Supreme Court, yet the OERC did not implement the ATE orders.

“We have been watching for several years, the unfair conduct of this Commission [OERC] through its various orders which bent upon violating all our directions given in our every judgment”, the ATE in its November 30th last year order had observed.

Further, ATE observed that “Even though we find that there is deliberate violation on the part of the State Commission, we would like to give one more opportunity to the State Commission to comply with our judgments at least now”.

But the Monday’s order by the ATE has opened the Pandora’s Box. “In spite of the fact that the judgments of this Tribunal have not been stayed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court but the Commission is not implementing the same on one pretext or the other, for the reasons best known to the Orissa Commission. Even last year in a detailed judgment of such kind, Orissa Commission was suggested the devices for such kind of eventualities but even then the attitude remains the same”, the ATE said posting the case for hearing on March 30th next.

Grid Corporation of Odisha [GRIDCO], which has 49% stake in the Reliance Infra managed three Discoms, was not allowing escrow relaxation in spite of several orders of ATE and OERC. GRIDCO has not issued any relaxation letter to DISCOMs for the FY2013-14 (except October 2013 & March 2014) and for FY 2014-15 till date. The entire revenue from sale of power is escrowed to GRIDCO.

Aggrieved DISCOMs preferred appeals before the ATE praying for, regulation of Escrow arrangement with first priority of utilization of escrow in favour of lenders and approval of allowing employees cost from Escrow Account pari-pasu with current power purchase cost etc.