HC stays FSA for first quarter of 2010

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad, Dec 5: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Tuesday granted a stay order on collection of Fuel Surcharge Adjustment (FSA) for the first quarter of 2010-11 by power distribution companies from consumers.

The interim order will come as a breather to domestic consumers as the discoms had already initiated steps to recover Fuel Surcharge for the financial year 2010-11.
Justice R. Subhash Reddy was dealing with a batch of petitions by consumers challenging the orders of the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission permitting power distribution companies to levy FSA for 2010-11 and 2011-12.

The petitioners argued that the commission had granted orders in favour of the discoms to recover FSA from consumers in spite of their applications being filed beyond the stipulated time of 30 days of every quarter in a year.

Though the judge agreed with the argument for the year 2010-11, he was not inclined to consider the above contention for the year 2011-12 at this stage.

He made it clear that the interim order would be applicable for the FSA with regard to the first quarter of the 2010-11 and the FSA for the remaining quarters would be dealt with later.

He also said that if any consumers had already paid the FSA for the first quarter of 2010-11, those payments would be subjected to the final orders of the petitions.

The four discoms in AP are already reeling under a financial crisis. At the same time, the FSA claims amount, already been spent on by the discoms over the last three years, is now unrecoverable till another ruling is passed in their favour by the Supreme Court.