Tata Power trades marginally higher as SC dismisses appeal

Shares of Tata Power were trading marginally higher in Thursday's trade, even as the Supreme Court dismissed its appeal against the Maharashtra power regulator's decision to award a Rs 7,000 crore transmission contract to Adani Electricity on a nomination basis in March last year.

The Appellate Tribunal for Electricity APTEL had been dismissed on February 18 by Tata Power against a MERC decision of the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission on the transmission contract, following which Tata Power had moved the apex court challenging this decision.

The stock was trading at a price of 0.32 per cent higher than the price of 221.45 on the BSE at 9.16 am.

The apex court upheld APTEL's order, which held that the decision to choose RTM regulate tariff mode under Section 62 of the Electricity Act 2003 to award the transmission contract cannot be described as incorrect, perverse or inappropriate.

Chief Justice Chandrachud, who wrote the judgment on behalf of the bench, said that where the appropriate commission s has already framed regulations, they shall be amended to include provisions on the criteria for choosing the tariffs in case they have not been already included, in case they have not already been included, in a report by IANS.

The Electricity Act 2003 grants states the flexibility to regulate the intra-state transmission systems, wherein the appropriate state commissions have the power to decide and regulate tariffs, according to the SC bench.

The bench said that the MERC shall determine the tariff by exercising its general regulatory powers under section 86 1 a of the Act, because the MERC has neither framed regulations nor notified guidelines for the criteria or guidelines for choosing the modalities to determine tariff.