Vacancies in Aptel create problems for us, SC to government

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the government when it was going to appoint judicial and technical members of the Appellate Tribunal of Electricity (Aptel) so that the tribunal could function to its full strength.

Observing that not filling the vacancies of judicial and technical members was "creating problems" for them, the vacation bench of Justice Abhey Manohar Sapre and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul gave the government three weeks to inform it when it was going to make the appointments to fill the vacancies of the second bench.

Telling Additional Solicitor General P.S. Narasimha "You are creating problems for us by not making the appointments", the bench said, "Find out when they intend to appoint the members of second bench (of Aptel)".

"We have asked the AGS to find out when the government intends to appoint a member of the second bench of Aptel", the court said in its order noting that "We have been told that an appeal of 2013 is pending".

Observing that tribunals were created for expediting matters, the vacation bench said, "You can't have 2013 appeals pending before the Aptel."

Giving three weeks time, the bench said, "Let the instructions be obtained by the next hearing of the matter."

Justice Surendra Kumar who presided over the second bench had retired on August 5, 2016 and the position is vacant since then. Besides Justice Kumar, technical member Rakesh Nath too had retired recently.

The court sought information on the appointment of the judicial and technical members after senior counsel Krishnan Venugopal told the vacation bench that "earlier they (Aptel) was working well but now there are delays as only one (of the two) bench is working."

Krishnan Venugopal appeared for petitioner Bhaskar Shrachi Alloys Ltd. which had moved the top court against an order of Aptel relating to a 2013 matter on fixation of power tariff.

--IANS

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