APTEL Rejects IREDA’s Plea to Review 2022 Tariff Ruling on Kerala Solar Project

The Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL), in a recent case, has dismissed a review petition filed by the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). The agency had sought a review of its February 2022 order related to a tariff dispute concerning a 50-megawatt (MW) solar project situated in Kasaragod, Kerala.

The tribunal held that IREDA was unable to meet the criteria for review under the established law, as the apex tribunal found no error in its earlier judgment. Earlier, IREDA had challenged an order passed by the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) that had fixed a tariff of ₹3.83/kWh for the solar project. It had also disallowed ₹25.38 crore in infrastructure costs paid by IREDA to the Renewable Power Corporation of Kerala Ltd (RPCKL).

Petitioner’s Arguments

In its plea before APTEL, IREDA said the factual position was not correctly presented before APTEL in 2022. The agency claimed that its earlier counsel had misunderstood the nature of the ₹25.38 crore payment to RPCKL and, acting on instructions, agreed not to press the issue for tariff determination. IREDA later contended that the payment represented total infrastructure costs, including land use, and not just power evacuation expenses.

IREDA said that the true nature of the payment came to light only after the 2022 ruling, when it reviewed related documents such as the Land Use Agreement and the Implementation Agreement with RPCKL. The agency maintained that an incorrect submission by its counsel constituted sufficient grounds for review.

APTEL’s Views

APTEL, in its order, rejected the petition filed by IREDA, citing the agency’s prior knowledge of the key documents before the final February 2022 judgment. It said that IREDA had discovered the documents while responding to APTEL’s queries on January 3, 2022. The tribunal held that the counsel’s statement in court was made on instructions from the client and that APTEL was entitled to rely on it.

“The facts could have been discovered upon exercising due diligence,” the tribunal said, adding that no “glaring mistake or patent error” existed in the 2022 order.

Final Order

“As already noted hereinabove, while preparing the response to the queries raised by this Tribunal on 03.01.2022, the officials of the petitioner discovered the Land Use Agreement and Implementation Agreement which had been executed with RPCKL but had not been placed either before the Commission or the Tribunal. Still, the counsel was not apprised about the existence of these two agreements and no effort was made to place on record these two agreements before the Tribunal,” APTEL said.

It also added, “Therefore, it cannot be said that the existence of these two agreements and the fact that ₹25.38 crore was not paid to RPCKL as power evacuation cost was not within the knowledge of the petitioner on or before 10.02.2022 and that these agreements/facts were discovered subsequent to the passing of the judgment under review by this Tribunal. Even otherwise, these could have been discovered by the petitioner upon exercise of due diligence by going through the records of the case while preparing the response to the queries of this Tribunal.”

It ruled that it did not find any merit in the review petition and dismissed it accordingly.