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The Electricity Department, Port Blair & Anr. v. M/s Suryachakra Power Corporation Ltd. & Anr.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 3764 of 2016)Decided 18 Oct 2016
Civil Appeal No. 3764 of 2016
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman

Background

This appeal was a sequel to an earlier Civil Appeal No. 1652 of 2015, where the Supreme Court had partly allowed the Electricity Department's appeal and set aside part of an Appellate Tribunal order that had increased interest-during-construction, financing charges, and incidental expenses for project delays. Following that earlier ruling, the Appellate Tribunal re-computed the project cost in a fresh order dated 14 March 2016, and the Electricity Department again appealed, disputing specific line items in the Tribunal's cost chart. A sum of Rs. 15 crores was also lying deposited with the Supreme Court Registry pending the outcome.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court reviewed the Tribunal's chart of project costs item by item and found that items 1 to 4 correctly conformed to its earlier judgment, but held that item 5 (around Rs. 1.84 crores and Rs. 0.84 crores for additional interest, financing cost, and incidental expenses) had to be deleted because of the limited relief already granted in the earlier appeal, bringing the total project cost down to Rs. 74.96 crores. The Court directed the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission, Gurgaon, to complete its pending adjudication within six weeks, and laid down a clear mechanism for the Registry to disburse the deposited Rs. 15 crores (with accrued interest) between the parties depending on the Commission's eventual directions. The appeal was disposed of with these directions and no costs.

Lesson Learnt

In multi-stage regulatory litigation, a court can finally settle the specific cost computation dispute actually before it, down to deciding which individual line items are correct, while still leaving a connected but separate regulatory adjudication (here, the Commission's payment determination) to run its own course under clear directions.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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