Seeking an audit of private discoms supplying electricity to the Capital, friends-turned-foes Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal were seen on the same side in the Supreme Court on Monday demanding the public auditor CAG to examine the accounts of Reliance-owned BSES and Tata Power-owned NDPl.
Bhushan appeared for a joint forum of Resident Welfare Associations (RAWs) called URJA (United RWAs Joint Action) to oppose the Delhi High Court order of October 30 denying such an audit. URJA was the petitioner before the Delhi HC. Bhushan was joined by Delhi Government, headed by Arvind Kejriwal, with a separate appeal challenging the very same order that set aside the AAP Government's 2014 order for the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to probe the discoms.
After hearing advocate Bhushan and senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan for Delhi Government, the bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre decided to issue notice to the discoms and posted the case for hearing on March 2.
The discoms were represented in the Court by eminent lawyers P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal, who accepted notice and were prepared to argue the case.
The three discoms supplying power in the Capital - Tata Power Delhi Distribution ltd (TPDDl), BSES Rajdhani Power ltd and BSES Yamuna Power ltd — have till date not been audited by the public auditor despite attempts made by the Delhi Government in the past.
The AAP Government accused the power companies of showing inflated expenses and on January 7, 2014 issued orders for CAG audit. The power companies appealed to the Delhi HC which held that the discoms cannot be audited by CAG as they are already under the jurisdictional authority of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC).
The HC termed the Delhi Government's decision as "populist" although Delhi Government has 49 per stake in the discoms. The HC did not agree with the demand of URJA or Delhi Government that an audit was needed in public interest to determine the tariff, saying "determination of tariff is in sole domain of DERC which is well empowered to conduct the same or have the same conducted