Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today appeared unperturbed over the Delhi High Court rap on her government over its direction to power regulator DERC on electricity tariff, saying the court had only objected to use of some words.
The government’s communication asking Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission to put on hold its decision on power tariff for 2010—2011 was quashed by the court yesterday. The DERC had planned a cut down in tariff in May last year.
“Its okay...the court has said so. I had talked to the Chief Secretary. They (the court) have said these words should not have been used, that’s what the Chief Secretary has told me...it is correct,” Ms. Dikshit told reporters here.
“We hold the communication of the state is absolutely unjustified, unwarranted, untenable and accordingly the same stands quashed,” said a division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan while accepting Attorney General G E Vahanvati’s view that the government has no power to pass such direction to a statutory body like DERC.
In May last year, in an unusual move, the city government through a notification had stalled DERC’s decision to announce the annual tariff for 2010-11 till it re-examines the demands from discoms to increase the rates.
The DERC, which was making last minute preparations to announce the new tariff, after receiving the government directive had indicated that it had planned to cut down the tariff by 20 to 25 per cent as discoms would have a surplus of around Rs 4,000 crore if the existing tariff was not tinkered with.
