The Madras High Court today directed TANGEDCO to file an affidavit indicating procedures that had been followed by it for consideration of the seniority of applications and land requirement in entering into Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) with companies.
Justice M M Sundresh gave the direction on petitions by Raasi Green Earth Energy Private Limited, Bangalore, and another plea seeking to punish some officials of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) for not following earlier directions of the Court to decide PPA's considering seniority of the applications, readiness and other parameters.
TANGEDCO had last month entered into agreements with 31 other companies, which "have no expertise and experience and only letter pad companies", violating the earlier court order, the petitioners submitted.
The petitions sought punishing TANGEDCO's Chairman and Managing Director Sai Kumar, Subramniam, Chief Engineer and Senior Engineer Manohar for not following the court order,
Earlier Justice T S Sivagnanm, after hearing the arguments of counsel of Raasi, had granted an interim injunction restraining TANGEDCO from purchasing solar power from any company.
Later, when the matter came up, the Judge, after hearing both sides, had permitted TANGEDCO to enter into PPA with the petitioners and vacated the restraining order and made it clear that all the actions done pursuant to the interim order shall be subject to the final orders to be passed on the matter.
TANGEDCO had last month entered agreements for PPA with 31 firms.
Contending that all these firms were "only letter-pad firms" and they lacked experience and expertise, Raasi filed the contempt petition.
They submitted that TANGEDCO officials have "deliberately and wantonly" disobeyed the orders of the High Court and entered into agreements without following or considering any of the parameters including seniority and readiness as directed to be considered by the High Court.
Considering the contempt petition, Justice Sundresh also pointed out that the interim order had already made it clear that subsequent action would be subject to the result of the writ petitions and posted the matter for further orders after two weeks.
