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Issues: (i) Whether the Regulatory Commission had jurisdiction to entertain the consumer's petition seeking a direction to a distribution licensee to supply electricity. (ii) Whether Tata Power was a deemed distribution licensee in the concerned area under the first proviso to Section 14 of the Electricity Act, 2003. (iii) Whether a local authority's exemption from open access under Section 42(3) bars another distribution licensee from supplying electricity in the same area by extending its own network without the local authority's consent.
Issue (i): Whether the Regulatory Commission had jurisdiction to entertain the consumer's petition seeking a direction to a distribution licensee to supply electricity.
Analysis: The petition sought enforcement of the statutory obligation of a distribution licensee to supply electricity. A person who had not yet become a consumer of the licensee could not be relegated to the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum under Section 42(5). The Regulatory Commission was competent to ensure compliance with obligations imposed by the Act.
Conclusion: The issue was decided against the appellant and in favour of jurisdiction in the Regulatory Commission.
Issue (ii): Whether Tata Power was a deemed distribution licensee in the concerned area under the first proviso to Section 14 of the Electricity Act, 2003.
Analysis: The earlier licences were granted under the repealed regime and continued to operate through the statutory deeming provision. Section 16 empowered the Appropriate Commission to specify general or specific conditions of licence, and the specific licence conditions fixed the term up to 15.8.2014. The statutory fiction had to be carried to its logical end, and the licence could not be treated as expiring after one year merely because the 2003 Act had commenced.
Conclusion: Tata Power was correctly treated as a deemed distribution licensee for the relevant area.
Issue (iii): Whether a local authority's exemption from open access under Section 42(3) bars another distribution licensee from supplying electricity in the same area by extending its own network without the local authority's consent.
Analysis: Section 42(3) creates an exception only in relation to open access and wheeling through another licensee's network. Section 43 separately imposes a universal service obligation on every distribution licensee to supply electricity on application, and that obligation is not displaced merely because the competing licensee operates in an area where the first licensee is a local authority. The Act contemplates competition and more than one distribution licensee in the same area, with each required to supply from its own network if open access is unavailable.
Conclusion: The local authority's open access exemption did not prevent the other licensee from extending its own network and supplying electricity in the same area.
Final Conclusion: The appeal failed in its entirety, and the concurrent findings of the Regulatory Commission and the Appellate Tribunal were affirmed.
Ratio Decidendi: A statutory deeming provision must be given full effect according to its purpose, and the open access exclusion for a local authority does not dilute the independent statutory duty of every distribution licensee to supply electricity under Section 43 by laying and using its own network.
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