JUDGMENT :

Every once in a while, an unsuspecting judge opens a case file, only to find himself dragged into an unfathomable ocean of technical gobbledygook. This is one such case, and an attempt at its resolution has had me delve into the privileged domain of electrical engineers, mercifully, with able assistance from the learned Senior Counsel, and their enthusiastic and erudite instructing counsel, appearing on either side.

The brief facts:

The State owned Distribution Licensee under the Electricity Act, 2003 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘2003 Act’) is the petitioner in this writ petition that questions the legality of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Sharing of Inter-State Transmission Charges & Losses) Regulations, 2020 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘2020 Regulations’). The petitioner argues that the impugned Regulations, by changing the basis for the sharing of inter-state transmission charges and losses from the one that obtained under the earlier Regulations of 2010, has strayed away from the objectives stipulated under the National Tariff Policy as also the provisions of the Electricity Act. It is also their case that the impugned Regulations discriminate a