- (1.) Leave granted in Special Leave Petition (Civil) No.29155 of 2011.
(2.) All these appeals which were heard analogously are directed against the common judgment and order of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh by which the LPAs filed against the dismissal of writ petitions filed by the appellants have also been dismissed. The challenge in the writ petitions filed was against the levy of surcharge on the appellants for not converting from 11 KV to 66 KV transmission. As the bills raised/ submitted were of the year 2007, we will understand the period of time required to be considered to be relatable to the tariff orders for the years 2004-2005, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007.
(3.) The appellants are electricity consumers of the general category who were drawing power at 11 KV. Under different notifications, issued from time to time, while other consumers like Induction Furnaces and Arc Furnaces were required to migrate to 66 KV transmission and in the interregnum pay surcharge at the stipulated rate, there was no such requirement for the appellants. The first time that such a stipulation came was in the ARR for the year 2004-2005 which was brought in by a corrigendum dated 15th September, 2004 issued well after the conclusion of the public hearings on the published Annual Revenue Requirement (concluded on 3rd September, 2004). The net result of the above would be that so far as the consumers of the category to which the appellants belong were made to suffer the levy of surcharge without an opportunity of hearing against the proposed levy. The point though not urged in the pleadings contained in the writ petitions appears to have been projected before the High Court in the course of the hearing. The High Court understood the corrigendum to be a beneficial exercise for the consumers and, therefore, discarded the plea urged with regard to violation of the principles of natural justice.;