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(c) that some of the crucial informations were made available to the stakeholders just 5 to 7 days before the last date of submission of comments to the State Commission. Such crucial information appears to have been deliberately kept away from the stakeholders and made available only at the last minute thereby providing very little opportunity to study the same and provide comments. Most of the crucial information was still kept away from the stakeholders. The Appellant, then, filed its objections to the proposed tariff revision by the State Commission.

(i) that the said exercise of the State Commission resulted in arbitrary hike in tariff which is a violation of the rights of the consumers and is an antithesis to the object of the Electricity Act, 2003.

(j) that this Appellate Tribunal, in its judgment, dated 9.4.2013, passed in Appeal No. 257 of 2012, directed the State Commission to publish all relevant information supplied by the licensees towards determination of tariff. Further, the State Commission's Tariff Regulations also require that all documents submitted by the licensees towards tariff determination shall be hosted in the website of the Commission. However, the State Commission did not make available the audited accounts for scrutiny by the stakeholders until about 5-7 days before the last date for submission of comments.

(l) that in the matter in hand, the public hearings were held at small towns where industrial concentration is low and the accessibility to attend such public hearings by the stakeholders and the public is remote. Since, before the previous tariff orders, the public hearings were made by the State Commission in bigger towns like Chennai, Coimbatore, etc. but before passing the present tariff orders, the public hearings were held at small towns making quite impracticable for the public and the stakeholders to attend the public hearings in smaller towns.

9.2 Per contra, on this issue, the Respondents have justified the reasoning recorded by the State Commission in the impugned order.

9.3 Our consideration and conclusion on Issue-B:

(a) The State Commission has recorded the sufficient and cogent reasons for change of public hearing venues before passing the impugned order, just to enable the stakeholders from other places of the State to express their views or send comments and to participate in the tariff determination process by the State Commission. We find that there is no hard rule to hold public hearing at particular venue. So far as the issue of inadequacy of required information and granting short time of 5-7 days in submitting the views of the stakeholders is concerned, we find from the record that sufficient time was granted by the State Commission to enable the real stakeholders and consumers to file their views and the information made available on the website and through newspapers also was quite adequate to enable the stakeholders to send their comments or suggestions. We also find no violation of principles of natural justice or violation of any kind of transparency i.e. alleged to have been committed by the State Commission in the impugned order. The State Judgment in Appeal Nos. 62 of 2015 & 63 of 2015 Commission is free to hold public hearings in any town whether large or small that they thinks fit to enable the public and the stakeholders to file their comments or suggestions. It is evident from the record that the information on power purchase and sales returns were hosted in the website of the State Commission on 24.10.2014 and the last date was further extended to 31.10.2014 to enable the stakeholders to send their comments. Thus, the adequate information and other details were available to the public or the stakeholders in advance to enable them to send their comments or suggestions.