The DVC is not entitled to claim arrears for the tariff control periods 2017-2018 and 2018-2020, as per the orders passed by the APTEL and the Supreme Court, which granted a stay of arrears charged on the basis of the impugned tariff orders, subject to the consumers going on paying current electricity charges.

JUDGMENT

1. The petitioners are consumers of electricity under the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) and are members of the Damodar Valley Power Consumers’ Association. The present writ petition has been preferred challenging a disconnection notice dated February 20, 2023 issued by the DVC to the petitioners.

2. Learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners argues that in view of the successive orders passed by the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL), at present, the DVC is precluded from claiming any arrears for the tariff control periods 2017-2018 and 2018-2020.

3. It is contended that the basis of the disconnection notice impugned herein, however, was non-payment of such arrears.

4. Learned senior counsel for the DVC controverts such submissions and argues that in the impugned disconnection notice, it was specifically mentioned that the arrear amount for the control periods 2017-2018 and 2018-2020 were excluded. Hence, the said ground of challenge is not tenable in the eye of law.

5. It is further argued that previously the petitioners had left huge amounts of dues as electricity charges, which are being paid by the petitioners in agreed instalments. Although the present claim has no nexus with the said instalments, it is contended that the petitioners are habitual defaulters.

6. It is further argued that the petitioners have resorted to forum shopping inasmuch as different sets of consumers of the DVC have approached different forums, including the APTEL and this Court, by preferring appeals and applications under Article 226 of the Constitution respectively. Hence, it is argued that the writ petition ought to be dismissed.

7. Certain orders passed by the APTEL acquire relevance in the context. In a challenge preferred by one Inox Air Products Private Limited, the APTEL, vide order dated June 6, 2022 had passed an interim order staying the payments of arrears by the appellant therein subject to the condition that the appellant pays full tariff at the rate as determined by the impugned tariff order (for the control period 2017-2018) dated May 5, 2022 for the period commencing with the date of the impugned order and continues to do so month by month against the periodic bills raised under the contract between the parties.

8. The same tariff order was challenged by the Damodar Valley Power Consumers’ Association, of which the petitioners are members. Vide order dated June 21, 2022, on an appeal preferred by the Association, the APTEL adopted the interim dispensation granted in the Inox matter. The present petitioners, in view of such interim order dated June 21, 2022 in favour of their Association, is, undoubtedly, entitled to protection under the same. By a subsequent order dated July 1, 2022, on another appeal preferred by a different consumer of the DVC, preferred against the same tariff order dated May 5, 2022 for the control period 2017-18, the APTEL adopted the same interim order in respect of all affected parties.

9. As a result, on and from July 1, 2022, all the consumers affected by the impugned tariff order for the control period 2017-18 were entitled to be protected from arrear charges levied on the basis of the said tariff order.

10. Again, vide order dated October 7, 2022, in another appeal filed by the Damodar Valley Power Consumers’ Association against the tariff order dated May 5, 2022 (in respect of control period 2017-18) and the tariff order dated June 17, 2022 (for control period 2018-20), the APTEL granted a blanket order of stay of the said two impugned tariff orders.

11. The DVC moved Civil Appeal Nos.8091-8098 of 2022 against the said bunch of orders dated October 7, 2022 passed by the APTEL. The Supreme Court, vide order dated November 23, 2022 clarified the order, thereby restoring the initial order dated June 6, 2022 of the APTEL, by maintaining the stay of arrears charged on the basis of the impugned tariff orders, subject to the consumers going on paying current electricity charges raised on the