HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NAGESH BHEEMAPAKA WRIT PETITIONS No. 1509, 5128, 5267, 5815, 5845, 5948, 5957, 6405, 6406, 6413, 6414, 6416, 6421, 6422, 6424, 6427, 6443, 6456, 6513, 6527, 6535, 6583, 6605, 6607, 6609, 6610, 8249, 8269, 8270, 8295, 8312, 8344, 9993, 10033, 10048, 10050, 10258, 10259, 11180, 11555, 11586, 11606, 11637, 11774, 13909, 14252, 15527, 16508, 17545, 18195, 20244 AND 21594 OF 2025

COMMON ORDER:

Heard Sri D.V. Nagarjuna Babu, learned Senior Counsel on behalf of Smt. K. Jayasree, Sri M.P. Chandramouli, learned Senior Counsel on behalf of Sri Ch. Satyasadhan, Sri Avinash Desai, learned Senior Counsel on behalf of Sri V. Anirudh Bharadwaj, learned counsel for petitioners, Sri P. Prasad, learned Standing Counsel on behalf of TGERC and Sri N. Sreedhar Reddy, learned Standing Counsel for TGSPDCL in all these Writ Petitions.

2. Since the lis involved is common, all these Writ Petitions are heard together and are being disposed of by this common order.

3. Impugning the orders passed by the 1^st respondent - Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Commission’), petitioners are before this Court.

4. For convenience sake, the facts narrated in Writ Petition No. 6405 of 2025, are taken up for consideration:

Petitioner is a limited company incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 which established an industrial unit in Survey No. 97E of Kothur Village, Shadnagar Mandal, Ranga Reddy District. Petitioner obtained two High Tension Power Supply bearing Service Connection Nos. MBN- 371 & MBN-710 from the 1^st respondent, a Licensee under Electricity Act, 2003 (for short, ‘the Act’). Subsequently, service connection bearing No. MBN-710 is merged with Service Connection No. MBN-371. Petitioner was originally availing power at 33 KV voltage level and presently 132 KV Voltage Supply.

4.1. Under Section 42(2) of the 2003 Act, it shall be the obligation of the 1st respondent State Regulatory Commission to introduce open access in such stages subject to such conditions (including the cross subsidy and other operational constraints) as may be specified within one year of the appointed date of it. Further, the 1^st Proviso to Section 42 empowers the Regulatory Commission to allow the open access users to pay a surcharge in the addition to the wheeling charges as may be determined by it. Petitioner is an open access user having received power from private generators situated outside the State of Telangana and is drawing power through Indian Energy Exchange (Ι.Ε.Χ.). This is in addition to the drawl of power from the 2^nd respondent under a statutory High Tension Agreement, as stated supra. For using the open access facility, petitioner is paying cross subsidy surcharge (CSS) to the 2^nd respondent apart from the wheeling charges which are meant to wheel the power purchased by them from third party source through distribution lines of the 2^nd respondent.

4.2. The 1st respondent Commission is empowered to fix CSS under Sections 39(2)(d)(ii), 40(c)(ii) and 42(2) of 2003 Act, when a transmission system of a licensee is used for open access for supply of electricity to a consumer. After open access system was introduced, the consumers of the 2^nd respondent started purchasing power from Power Generating Companies situated in other States through Indian Energy Exchange and interested consumers were allowed to purchase power from Power Generating Companies situated in the combined State of Andhra Pradesh. While so, petitioner availed power from M/s Rain Calcining Limited (presently Rain Carbon-II), which is non-conventional power generating company during 2005-06 to 2010-11. In this connection, it is relevant to submit here that in respect of the power purchases made from non-conventional power generating companies like M/s Rain Calcining Limited, no Cross Subsidy Surcharge needs to be paid by the purchasers. Despite the same, the 2^nd respondent demanded CSS from the purchasers of power from non-c