The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission is set to resume operations after a five-month long hiatus, following a recent Supreme Court order.
According to reliable reports, the Supreme Court of India, on January 20, 2021, allowed CERC to resume administrative operations and pass orders on the “reserved” cases.
This follows the Central government’s intimation to the Supreme Court about the appointment of Member (Legal) to the CERC.
On December 12, 2020, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the proposal for appointment of Pravas Kumar Singh, Member (Legal), Jharkhand SERC to the post of Member (Law) in the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.
It may be recalled that in April 2018, Supreme Court ruled that CERC and all state electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs) should have one Member (Law) in its quorum. Such a member should have the qualifications of a High Court or District Court judge. However, the Union power ministry failed to appoint such a member so far, and the CERC was therefore in a state of suspension since August 28, 2020.
Administrative functions to start with
To begin with, CERC will be allowed to start administrative functions. However, the adjudicatory operations can start only when the Member (Legal) formally assumes office. What this means is that the CERC can pass orders on the “reserved” cases, to begin with. A “reserved” case is one on which hearing has been completed but the judgment has not yet been delivered. Such cases number 173, according to information available from CERC.
Once the Member (Legal) joins, full-fledged operations can start at CERC. Currently, there are 1,124 petitions pending with CERC. This includes the 173 cases on which orders have been reserved. During the period September 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020, around 120 fresh petitions were filed with CERC.
The reason for suspension
CERC currently has a chairman, R.K. Pujari and two other members – Indu Shekhar Jha (former CMD, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd) and Arun Goyal (Retired Secretary, Government of India). There is also one ex-officio member belonging to Central Electricity Authority (CEA).
The two members, other than the ex-officio member, were asked to proceed on leave by a Supreme Court order of August 28, 2020. Due to this, CERC could not complete the quorum (of Chairman and two members) and is hence was in a state of non-operation since August 28, 2020.
