2000 Supreme(AP) 784

Andhra Pradesh High Court
Judges : P.VENKATRAMA REDDY, S.R.NAYAK
S.Bharat Kumar - Appellant
Versus
Government Of A.P. - Respondent
Decided On : 10-16-00

Headnote:

Constitution of India - Articles 14, 21 and 300-A - Sub-section (1) of section 5 - Section ll (l) (e), Section 11 (3), section 12, Section 21 (1, 2) – 226 - sections 23 (4) (b), 26 (1), 26 (2), 26 (5) (a), 26 (5) (b) - Andhra Pradesh Electricity Reform Act, 1998 (Aet 30/98) Section ll (l) (e) and Section 26 (1,2) - Writ Petition – Electricity case - In recent times, the wind of reform which aims at paving the way for a healthy, dynamic, financially viable and self- sustained growth of the power sector to meet the ever increasing demand for electricity from various categories of customers on an equitable basis both in terms of quality and quantity as well as of reasonable tariff so as to facilitate a rapid growth of the Nation s economy is blowing in almost all the States in India - Sometimes, as in the case of the State , the blowing of the reform win was very hard, strong and hurting too against certain hitherto protected and favoured categories of consumers of electricity like agriculturists and domestic consumers, irrespective of the fact whether it is justified or not - This resulted in perceived shock and dismay and spontaneously generated persistent and percurrent protests, rallies, agitations ending, at times, with unpardonable violence denounced with abomination and righteous indignation by the Father of the nation - Police interventions in the troubled situations and accusations of police excesses have become talk of the State and rocked the proceedings of the State Legislative assembly - State Recently underwent such experience immediately after the impugned increase of the electricity tariff - It is stated that it is the aim of the State Government to structure the power-sector in such a manner as to impart the creditworthiness needed to new investments by facilitating its functions on sound commercial lines -State government has recognized that functional unbundling and corporatisation of the power-sector is one of the necessary and crucial steps for investment so as to bring around fundamental change in its functioning, and make it work on sound principles of modern management - It was also felt that distancing of the State government from the ownership and operations of the power-sector by imparting functional autonomy to the various functional unbundled entities in the power- sector will go a long way in fostering the much needed commercial orientation to the long ailing power-sector - As a necessary corollary, it seems, the State Government wanted to withdraw from its earlier role of regulation of power-sector including the regulation of tariff to retain with itself only the role of broad formulation of socioeconomic policies - Result of the new thought and orientation is the enactment of the Act – Held, - In view of the foregoing discussion, Court find no merit in any of the contentions raised on behalf of the petitioners - However, before parting with the case, we would like to refer to one aspect which deserves the attention of the Government - For the two slabs in the domestic category from the tariff hike is comparatively higher and stiff in terms of the percentage when compared to other slabs - Consumers in these brackets are either poor or lower middle class - Reason for the steep increase is said to be that from onwards, there was no enhancement - Even then, the steep enhancement at a time may result in hardship to those consumers - So also in agriculture sector, the percentage of hike is quite high - It is stated that the tariff remained static for agricultural consumers from and therefore, the hike seems to be somewhat high in terms of percentage - It is nearly - Government has thought it fit to subsidise the domestic and agricultural consumers in furtherance of avowed socio-economic objectives of the state -Even with the additional subsidy provided by the Government, the percentage of hike in the case of categories of consumers referred to above appears to be, comparatively high - Though we are not inclined to give any directions as to the provision of additional subsidy for it is up to the Government to consider the question of providing additional subsidy so as to reduce the percentage of increase in respect of certain categories of domestic and agricultural sector to a reasonable level, we do hope that it would receive the earnest consideration of the Government at the earliest - Writ Petitions are dismissed with the above observations - No costs - On a mention made by one of the learned Counsel soon after the judgment is pronounced that the time for clearance of the bills as per the revised tariff has been extended only up to - Court consider it just and proper to direct that in case the outstanding bills are cleared b, no penalty or surcharge should be levied – Dismissed.