Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has held that there was nothing wrong in the Electricity Regulatory Commission fixing a particular methodology to bill HT consumers.
A division bench of Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice A Ramalingeswara Rao was allowing a batch of writ appeals filed by the erstwhile AP Electricity Regulatory Commission, as well as discoms, challenging orders passed by single judges at different times. Consumers are subjected to twin tariff system and pay maximum demand charges (measured in kilo volt amperes per hour) and energy charges (kilo watts per hour).
On March 30, 2011, the commission approved Kvah based billing instead of Kwh based billing for certain sectors. HT consumers challenged the change and single judges declared it as invalid. On Saturday, the bench said, “We do not consider that the change in billing methodology is in conflict with the provisions of Act of 2003 or the Constitution. Its rationality was examined before introduction and cannot be held to be arbitrary.”
