Challenge to Regulation 97 of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations closed as issue already upheld.

The petitioners filed a series of writ petitions in 2006 challenging the constitutionality of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations.

W.P. No. 50345 of 2006 sought a declaration that Regulation 97 is unconstitutional, arbitrary, and null and void.

W.P. No. 50346 of 2006 challenged administrative proceedings from 1986 and 1987 (B.P.Ms.(FB)No.3 and B.P.Ms.(FB)No.66).

W.P. No. 50347 of 2006 challenged a specific impugned letter dated August 1, 2006.

Whether Regulation 97 of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations is unconstitutional or ultra vires the Constitution of India.

The court applied the principle of stare decisis and the finality of litigation.

Once a statutory provision or regulation has been judicially scrutinized and upheld by a competent court, subsequent challenges on the same grounds do not survive for further adjudication.

During the proceedings, the learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the legal validity of Regulation 97 had already been upheld in prior litigation.

Because the provision in question had been established as legally sound, the court determined that the substratum of the petitioners' challenge had disappeared.

Consequently, there was no live legal issue or "surviving" controversy for the High Court to adjudicate under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The final order closed all three Writ Petitions (W.P. Nos. 50345 to 50347 of 2006) and the connected miscellaneous petitions (M.P. Nos. 1, 1, and 1 of 2013) with no order as to costs.