Order rejecting prayer for review or modification of an interim order is not appealable.

The Appellant, a transmission licensee, developed a project on a Build, Own, Operate, Maintain, and Transport (BOOT) basis under a Transmission Service Agreement (TSA) dated 20 January 2012

Due to delays, a supplementary TSA was executed on 9 June 2018

The Appellant filed Petition No. 1328 of 2018 before the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) seeking tariff payments from July 2017

On 12 July 2018, the Commission passed an interim order directing payments to commence from 27 October 2017

The Appellant subsequently filed an "additional statement of facts" requesting a revision of the effective date to 27 July 2017

The Commission, vide the impugned order dated 13 December 2018, rejected these additional submissions and maintained the interim order

Although the Commission's records marked the petition as "Disposed," no final hearing on the merits of the entire petition had occurred

1. Whether the order dated 13 December 2018 constitutes a final order or an interlocutory order

2. Whether an appeal against an order rejecting a request for review or modification of an interim order is maintainable

The Tribunal primarily applied the principles governing the nature of judicial orders, distinguishing between interlocutory and final orders based on the "tone, tenor, and circumstances" of the decision

It relied on Order 47 Rule 7 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), 1908, which stipulates that an order rejecting an application for review is not appealable

The Tribunal further observed that the status of a case in administrative records (e.g., marked as "Disposed") does not override the legal character of the order if the underlying petition was never adjudicated on its merits

The Tribunal analyzed the language of the impugned order and found that the Commission had effectively treated the Appellant’s "additional statement of facts" as a review petition

The Tribunal noted that the Commission followed an "unusual course" by rejecting the prayer for modification without formally concluding the main petition

It held that because the order merely stated that the interim directions of 12 July 2018 "will continue," it was inherently interlocutory and lacked the finality required to dispose of the petition

Furthermore, the Tribunal reasoned that since the Appellant failed to challenge the original interim order of 12 July 2018, an appeal against a subsequent refusal to modify that order was legally impermissible under the CPC principles

The Tribunal concluded that the Commission’s administrative marking of the case as "Disposed" was a clerical error, as the petition’s core claims remained unadjudicated

The appeal was dismissed

However, the Tribunal found that the Commission erroneously treated the original Petition No. 1328 of 2018 as disposed

Consequently, the Tribunal directed the Commission to restore the petition to its docket, afford the parties a reasonable hearing, and pass a final order on the merits within two months

The parties were granted liberty to approach the Tribunal again following the final disposal by the Commission