ORDER :

The petitioners, who are the Managing Partners of their respective Rice Mills (15 in number) situated in East Godavari District, filed writ petition jointly to issue a Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the respondents by levying penal charges in terms of Restrictions & Control Measures as notified by the 4th respondent and including the amounts in the H.T. Electricity bills for the months of April, 2022 and May, 2022 of East Godavari District, as illegal and arbitrary.

2. The case of the petitioners is that their rice mills are trading industry converting paddy into rice, sale of rice in open market and also to comply with quota of levy rice to the Civil Supplies Department. The rice mills are running on the electricity provided by the respondents having service connections under High Tension Industry (General)-III A category having contracted demand under 11 K.V. common transformer supply. An agreement of electricity supply was executed in favour of the respondents under the provisions of the Electricity Act. They have never violated the terms of supply and not committed any breach of agreement. They are paying monthly electricity bills to the respondents. The respondents provided a three phase meter for recording actual current in units consumed by their rice mill. There is another tri-vector meter provided to record the load in Kilo Volts Ampere Hours (K.V.A.H). As per Term No.2.2.35, the maximum demand for a month is taken at twice the maximum number of K.V.A.H. delivered at the point of supply to their rice mills during any consecutive 30 minutes during the month. Since their rice mills are having contracted demand of less than 65.3630 K.V.A.H., H.T. monthly bills are prepared by the office of the 2nd respondent. As per the declared Restrictions and Control Measures, the H.T. consumers are permitted only to use 50% of the CMD. But, the rice milling industry requires all the machinery should work together at one time and it is impossible for them to run the rice mill at 50% CMD.

It is further states that the respondents issued notice for continuous process industries under H.T. supply that Restrictions and Control Measures of power supply having been imposed from 23.04.2022 to 30.04.2022 initially and later it was extended from 01.05.2022 to 15.05.2022. During that period, it was permitted to utilize the complete load from 6.00 AM to 6.00 PM (day time only) and to restrict the load to lighting only from 6.00 PM to 6 AM and two days power holiday to be implemented on Sunday and Tuesday. The 4th respondent – APERC issued the impugned Restrictions and Control (R&C) Order at the instance of DISCOMs in the State by approving their proposals on controlling the use of electricity by the consumers due to shortage in supply and the DISCOMs are unable to meet with 100% demand of supply. As per the order passed by the 4th respondent, the 2nd respondent issued orders that for any breach of the Restrictions and Control Measures, a penalty would be levied against the industrial consumers including their rice mills. Their rice milling industry as a whole in the State suffered a serious set back due to Covid-19 pandemic period. They could not operate their business activity totally during the said period. When the normalcy is restored, they just started their production activity of rice milling. In the meanwhile, the R&C measures are imposed on their Rice Milling industry. The imposition of R&C measures is a reflection of total mismanagement on the part of DISCOMs and as a result of that, ultimately the electricity consumers like their rice mills are put to suffer. They have to supply levy rice to the Civil Supplies Department as per the quotas fixed by it and they have also to comply with the supply agreement with outsiders. In those circumstances, it has become impossible for them to co-opt with the R&C measures. On the other hand, the average rate per unit of electricity is Rs.7.14 Ps., out of that Rs.0.26 per unit is attri