Recent Legal Developments in the Field of Energy and Power Sector

Energy and Power Sector-

• A Special Leave petition has been file by the administration of the Union Territory of Chandigarh against the order issue by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in the Supreme Court. The SLP has been file in the apex court of India in order to put a stay to the Punjab and Haryana High court order to privatize the power department. This move comes after the Ministry mentioning the fact that privatization is an important measure to be takes in order to achieve the goal of ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’.

Energy and Power Sector

• Renewable energy processing related companies like Tata and its subsidiaries along with two other companies have decided to move to the Supreme Court of India with relation to the request to transfer the cases from Andhra Pradesh High Court where the fiasco is about the unilateral tariff reduction. The entire fiasco erupted when the newly-formed YSR government in the state of Andhra Pradesh decided to review the tariff rates as they pretty high according to them. However, the companies refused to renegotiate and then decided to take the matter in the court, which resulted in the non-payment of the tariffs and a logjam.
• The decision of the Centre and seven other coal-rich states(Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Telangana) to give away dense forest areas rich with coal for commercial mining has been

met with a plea challenging the same in the Supreme Court. The person appearing for activist Sudiep Srivastava is Adv. Prashant Bhushan and the bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian. The writ petition has been file under Article 32 of the Indian constitution.

• The Apex Court on 20^th January, 2021 provided relief to the Central Electricity Commission (CERC) after issuing orders to restart the functioning of the commission’s administrative operations and further gave the authority to the regulatory commission to pass orders with respect to the 174 pending cases in the commission.