Excess charges during the advance-declaration regime must be calculated using communicated quotas.

During Tamil Nadu’s electricity restrictions, TANGEDCO fixed demand and energy quotas for HT consumers using captive power. From November 2009, quotas were based on consumers’ advance declarations of proposed captive energy.

In its judgment of 12 December 2012, APTEL held that the advance-declaration quotas governed excess-charge calculations through September 2010, and that the later method based on energy actually consumed or adjusted applied from 1 October 2010.

In 2023, TNERC nevertheless directed that actual captive energy adjusted or consumed be deducted when calculating TANGEDCO-supplied demand and energy for the disputed period.

On Best Cotton Mills’ review petition, TNERC modified its order, deleted the relevant calculation directions, and relied on APTEL’s 2012 judgment. TANGEDCO appealed, arguing that review was impermissibly used to reconsider an issue already addressed.

1. Whether TNERC’s 2023 order contained an error apparent on the face of the record warranting review of the directions for calculating excess demand and energy charges for the advance-declaration period.

2. Whether the 2023 calculation directions were inconsistent with APTEL’s judgment dated 12 December 2012 and therefore properly deleted on review.

Review jurisdiction is narrow: it is not an appeal in disguise and is confined to an error apparent on the face of the record, discovery of new and important matter despite due diligence, or analogous grounds under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, read with Section 94(1)(f) of the Electricity Act, 2003.

Under APTEL’s binding judgment of 12 December 2012, advance-declaration quotas governed the calculation of excess demand and energy charges through September 2010; the method based on actual captive energy consumed or adjusted applied from 1 October 2010.

APTEL reaffirmed that approach in its judgment of 29 May 2014, which the Supreme Court did not disturb.

The appeal was brought under Section 111(1) of the Electricity Act, 2003.

The original order accepted that the quota for the disputed period was fixed using advance declarations, but its subsequent directions required actual energy adjusted or consumed to be deducted when determining the balance supplied by TANGEDCO and assessing excess charges.

APTEL found that this introduced, for the period before 1 October 2010, the actual-consumption methodology that its 2012 judgment had held applicable only from that date.

The original directions were therefore inconsistent with the binding precedent, and the inconsistency constituted an apparent error suitable for correction on review.

The Tribunal also rejected TANGEDCO’s argument concerning consumers given only a combined quota, finding that the 2012 judgment did not distinguish between combined and separately stated quotas.

It upheld the deletion of paragraphs 8.15(II)(vii), 8.15(II)(viii) and 8.16 of the original order, dismissed the appeal, and disposed of any pending applications.