The Supreme Court will hear on Wednesday, the interim application filed by Tamil Nadu in its original suit wherein it has sought directions to restrain the Union of India from re-allocating the entire surplus power surrendered by the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi to any other State and to direct it to re-allocate the power so surrendered by the NCT to TN.
At 2 pm on Monday, senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi, along with Additional Advocate General of TN Subramonium Prasad, brought up the matter for urgent hearing before a Bench comprising Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, Justice S S Nijjar and Justice J Chelameswar.
After hearing the submissions briefly, Justice Kabir said the matter would be heard on Wednesday. TN filed an original suit in the apex court averring that it was in a dire need of power, on October 29. TN averred that the entire country was divided into five-regions- North, South, East, West and North-East. Except the southern region, the rest were integrated into a Unified Grid (new grid) through which, there was a free flow of electricity among these four regions. However, the southern region, comprising TN, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry, were not connected to the Unified Grid and due to this, these regions, particularly TN, were not getting adequate power supply from the new grid. With these averments, TN sought directions to the Union of India to provide the necessary transmission corridor to ensure smooth inter-state power transmission.
Under the Electricity Act, 2003, it was the duty of the Centre to take such measures for maintaining smooth and stable transmission and supply of electricity to every State. Tamil Nadu further stated that during the current year, the NCT of Delhi decided to surrender a substantial quantum of electricity not required by it during the winter months.
The NCT would surrender 230 MW of Round the Clock (RTC) power (00.00 hours to 24.00 hours) and 1,491 MW of power (from 00.00 hours to 06.00 hours).
The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Ltd wrote a letter to TN asking it to indicate the requirement of power so that re- allocation of power could be taken up with the Ministry of Power. Tamil Nadu wrote back on October 5, requesting a re-allocation of the entire quantum of power surrendered. Tamil Nadu was prepared to purchase the surplus power.
TN had requested for re-allocation of all the power surrendered by the NCT along with the necessary transmission corridor, but no communication has been received thus far, TN stated in its original suit.