The Delhi government has told the Supreme Court that BSES companies of Reliance Infrastructure were ‘inefficient’ as they had defaulted on their dues to NTPC and other electricity suppliers, unlike the Tatas who made prompt payments.
‘These two companies owe Rs 4,500 crore. My concern is outages. You cannot take electricity and not pay for it. At the end of the day the Tatas are paying, why can’t (BSES) Rajdhani? Both are working in the same regulatory regime,’ Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra told a two-judge bench hearing the case.
The two Reliance companies have been locked in a bitter stand-off with the generating companies over arrears. They claim that the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has failed to provide adequate tariffs that can cover costs and give reasonable returns.
BSES lawyer Mukul Rohatgi claimed that the dues outstanding to the two companies were around Rs 15,000 crore. The company has cited this outstanding amount as the reason why it could not pay generating companies any more money till it recovered some parts of the dues. Power major NTPC had earlier threatened to cut off power supply to BSES if the stalemate continued.
At the last hearing, the bench had asked NTPC to desist from doing any such thing in ‘consumer’ interest and asked BSES to pay a sum of Rs 700 crore due from the beginning of 2014.
When the bench was reconvened, BSES and the power generating companies traded charges over non-payment of dues again. While NTPC insisted that no dues have been paid since the last court hearing and suggested ‘power regulation’ to deal with the problem, a euphemism for power cuts, BSES claimed it had paid Rs 601 crore so far.
Senior advocate KK Venugopal claimed that NTPC had in turn to pay Coal India and non-payment by BSES was having a ‘cascading effect’ all around.
‘He is the biggest industrialist in the country,’ Venugopal stated. Rohatgi countered this. ‘I am owed Rs 15,000 crore, and I am termed inefficient!’ The bench then adjourned the case to allow both sides to sort out the issue of payment of current dues, but not before the DERC, through senior advocate Meet Malhotra, had similarly accused BSES of being ‘inefficient’ and ‘financially indisciplined’. Malhotra claimed that there were major variations in figures in audited statements made earlier and now, adding a CAG audit would help uncover the facts, he said.
‘These two companies owe Rs 4,500 crore. My concern is outages. You cannot take electricity and not pay for it. At the end of the day the Tatas are paying, why can’t (BSES) Rajdhani? Both are working in the same regulatory regime,’ Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra told a two-judge bench hearing the case.
The two Reliance companies have been locked in a bitter stand-off with the generating companies over arrears. They claim that the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has failed to provide adequate tariffs that can cover costs and give reasonable returns.
BSES lawyer Mukul Rohatgi claimed that the dues outstanding to the two companies were around Rs 15,000 crore. The company has cited this outstanding amount as the reason why it could not pay generating companies any more money till it recovered some parts of the dues. Power major NTPC had earlier threatened to cut off power supply to BSES if the stalemate continued.
At the last hearing, the bench had asked NTPC to desist from doing any such thing in ‘consumer’ interest and asked BSES to pay a sum of Rs 700 crore due from the beginning of 2014.
When the bench was reconvened, BSES and the power generating companies traded charges over non-payment of dues again. While NTPC insisted that no dues have been paid since the last court hearing and suggested ‘power regulation’ to deal with the problem, a euphemism for power cuts, BSES claimed it had paid Rs 601 crore so far.
Senior advocate KK Venugopal claimed that NTPC had in turn to pay Coal India and non-payment by BSES was having a ‘cascading effect’ all around.
‘He is the biggest industrialist in the country,’ Venugopal stated. Rohatgi countered this. ‘I am owed Rs 15,000 crore, and I am termed inefficient!’ The bench then adjourned the case to allow both sides to sort out the issue of payment of current dues, but not before the DERC, through senior advocate Meet Malhotra, had similarly accused BSES of being ‘inefficient’ and ‘financially indisciplined’. Malhotra claimed that there were major variations in figures in audited statements made earlier and now, adding a CAG audit would help uncover the facts, he said.
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