Cuttack, May 5: The dispute over power tariff hike in Orissa took a new turn today with Orissa High Court seeking details on defaulting industries and the amount pending recovery from major industries and government institutions in the state.

The interim order was issued while hearing the PILs challenging the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC)’s order enhancing power tariff for 2011-2012 from April 1. Justice B.P. Das and Justice B.K. Mishra had taken up the PILs for analogous hearing after Chief Justice V. Gopal Gowda had withdrawn from adjudicating on them.

The bench directed Gridco to produce by then “the list of industries against which electricity disconnection notice has been issued in the past three years and the recoverable amount against each of major industries and government institutions and PSUs”.

“The commission shall produce the records of Gridco and the three distribution companies — Southco, Wesco and Nesco — and the pending application for revocation of their licence,” the court ordered.

The petitioners had accused the commission of passing the order for enhancing tariff “in a routine and casual manner” on the application for revenue requirement and determination of tariff for 2011-2012.

The four distribution companies had filed the application without supplying audited accounts along with income and expenditure for 2010-2011 and the commission had not taken stock of it, the petitioners said.

Earlier on March 31, the two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice B.K. Mishra imposed restrictions on collection of the revised tariff from the consumers by issuing an interim stay order on the commission’s order after a preliminary hearing on a PIL filed by the Federation of Consumer Organisations Orissa, the Keonjhar Navanirman Parishad and a consumer, Arun Kumar Sahoo.

The PIL was listed before the two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra for analogous hearing along with two other petitions filed by the Utkal Chamber of Commerce (UCC) and the Rohit Ferrotech Ltd. After closing hearing on maintainability of the PILs and reserving judgment, the Chief Justice withdrew from adjudicating on them on Wednesday.

The commission had argued that increase in power purchase cost was primarily linked to increase in cost of fuel, transportation and other incidental costs. “There is no option but to pass on these costs to the consumers like in the case of petrol, diesel and kerosene,” the OERC stated, while indicating that if collection of enhanced power tariff was not allowed there would be loadshedding in the state.

The commission had questioned maintainability of the PILs on the ground that there was an Appellate Tribunal for Electricity against an order passed by it. The commission had contended that the high court had limited power to intervene in respect of tariff.