BRIHANMUMBAI ELECTRIC SUPPLY & TRANSPORT UNDERTAKING Vs. MAHRASHTRA ELECTRICITY REGULATORY COMMISSION (MERC)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondent No.3 is a consumer (hereinafter referred to as the "consumer") of electricity (LT-II Category) whose premises are situated within area of supply of the appellant namely Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST). In April 2009, he approached respondent No.2 i.e. Tata Power Company Limited (TPC) with a request that he be supplied the electricity by TPC. In nutshell, he wants to switch over from BEST to TPC for his electricity requirement. In response to his request, TPC advised the consumer vide letter dated 8.7.2009 to approach the BEST for its permission to use its distribution network of the BEST to enable TPC to supply electricity to the consumer using that network. The consumer, accordingly, turned to BEST requesting it to give the said permission. It was, however, denied by BEST vide letter dated 31.7.2009 and again on 10.8.2009. After receiving this rejection, the consumer approached Mumbai Electricity Regulatory Commission (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulatory Commission") with petition seeking the following directions:

(2.) In the meantime, respondent Nos.4 to 8 also filed similar petitions before the Regulatory Commission with same relief as they also wanted to switch over to TPC for their electricity requirement. Since direction was sought for TPC, only TPC was made party. However, at the instance of Regulatory Commission BEST and Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) were also impleaded in these matters. After hearing all the parties, Regulatory Commission passed orders dated 22.2.2010 holding that TPC was bound to supply electricity in terms of applicable Regulations and therefore direction was given to the TPC to supply electricity to the consumers either through BEST wires or its own wires. The operative part of that order reads as under:

(3.) We may point out here that the BEST (the appellant herein) had resisted the demand of the consumers in their petitions with the following contentions: