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Showing contexts for: FPPCA in Bihar Chamber Of Commerce vs Bihar Electricity Regulatory ... on 28 May, 2014Matching Fragments
17. Issue No. G in Appeal No. 131/2012:
17.1 This issue is with respect to imposition of Fuel & Power Purchase Cost Adjustment (FPPCA) in the case of Respondent Board, wherein the Board is acting as a power trader and such enhancement in purchase cost can be reconciled in review and truing up to make the levy prospective.
17.2 The main contention of the Appellant/Bihar Chamber of Commerce/ Association of Traders is that the State Commission cannot ask the licensee/Electricity Board to recover the FPPCA Page (36) Judgment in Appeal Nos.131, 135, 151 & 185 of 2012 charges without review and truing up particularly when the licensee is not a power generator but only a power trader.
17.3 The State Commission, according to the Appellant/Bihar Chamber of Commerce/Association of Traders has not applied its mind while incorporating FPPCA charge formula as it is beyond the competence of the State Commission to prescribe FPPCA formula in the tariff order. In terms of the Electricity Act, 2003 particularly section 62(4) read with section 2(62), there has to be a regulation for the same. It is well settled principle that if a particular act has to be done in a particular manner, any other manner is barred in law. The approach of the State Commission in allowing the licensee/Board to recover FPPCA charges from the Appellant/ Association of Traders, despite the fact that the traders are not generating energy rather they are engaged in power trading.
17.5 Per contra, the learned counsel for the Electricity Board on this issue has submitted that the issue of FPPCA charges is no longer res-integra in as much as this Appellate Tribunal, vide judgment dated 18.5.2011 passed in Appeal No. 172 of 2010 has held that FPPCA formula as laid down in tariff order, dated 26.8.2008, cannot be defeated because of same not being specified in the tariff regulations in terms of regulation 21 thereof and the question of approval of parameters before implementation of the FPPCA formula does not arise because operational parameters Page (37) Judgment in Appeal Nos.131, 135, 151 & 185 of 2012 have been laid down in the tariff order itself and, further, the computation of the FPPCA, though it is related to the chapter of determination of tariff, is virtually a mechanical application of the formula already specified and made known to all concerned. On the basis of above observations, this Tribunal had dismissed the aforesaid Appeal No. 172 of 2010, vide judgment, dated 18.5.2011.
17.6 According to the Board's counsel, the Board is filing its monthly cost variation before the State Commission for approval and based on the approval of the same, the Board is levying FPPCA charges on its consumers and, hence, there is no violation of regulations framed by the State Commission and the Appellant-Association of Traders' contention that FPPCA charges cannot be imposed without audited accounts or review and truing-up of the expenses and Revenues based on the final actual figures, is not correct.