Rs 212 crore Adani surcharge bills go to TNERC: Madras HC will not extend APTEL interim order
Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy dismissed a writ petition over four late-payment surcharge invoices that TNPDCL had blocked on the PRAAPTI portal, holding that the petitioner has an alternative remedy before TNERC and that APTEL interim relief on a sister invoice cannot be carried over.
Adani Green Energy Twenty Three Limited wanted the Madras High Court to treat four invoices worth Rs 212.21 crore the way APTEL had treated a fifth. On 11 November, Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy refused. An interim order granted on a condition of 50 percent payment, he held, cannot be stretched to connected claims.
The writ petition is dismissed, with liberty to approach the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) on the four invoices. There is no order as to costs.
Five solar contracts, one amalgamated company
TNERC’s tariff order of 12 September 2014 fixed solar tariff at Rs 7.01 per unit for solar PV projects. It required the distribution licensee to pay within 60 days or pay interest at 1 percent per month. Five energy purchase agreements, totalling 648 MW, followed on identical terms.
The Tamil Nadu utility was restructured in January 2024, and the agreements passed to Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TNPDCL) and Tamil Nadu Green Energy Corporation Limited (TNGECL). On 19 March 2024 the NCLT, Ahmedabad Bench, sanctioned an amalgamation of 16 companies, including the five generators, into the petitioner.
One TNERC order, five invoices
One of the five, Kamuthi Renewable Energy Limited, went to TNERC in D.R.P. No. 19 of 2023. On 17 February 2026 TNERC directed that payments by TNPDCL be adjusted first against late-payment surcharge and then against the oldest outstanding bill.
On that basis the petitioner raised an invoice of Rs 38,08,85,847 on 21 February 2026. On 27 February it raised four supplementary invoices for the other four companies: Rs 51,28,75,457, Rs 107,76,74,034, Rs 43,69,21,926 and Rs 9,46,46,149, together Rs 212,21,17,566.
It uploaded the four on the PRAAPTI portal on 3 March 2026, and TNPDCL returned them on 5 March. TNGECL had meanwhile challenged the first invoice in W.P. No. 18028 of 2026 and won an interim stay on 30 April, after which TNPDCL marked the four as disputed.
On 29 May 2026 the High Court dismissed that petition with liberty to approach the appellate authority. A writ appeal was dismissed too, with time to go to APTEL and a direction of no coercive steps until APTEL took up the matter.
On 25 June 2026 APTEL directed no coercive action against TNGECL on the first invoice, subject to payment of 50 percent. Rs 19,04,42,924 was paid, with tax deducted at source. A letter of 10 July 2026 then said there was no court order or competent direction on the other four, and no action should be taken on PRAAPTI.
What the petitioner asked for
The writ sought to quash the letter of 10 July 2026 and to direct the Union of India and PFC Consulting Limited to treat the objection as non est and process the four invoices. Mr P.S. Raman, Senior Counsel, appeared for the petitioner.
He asked that at least 50 percent of the four invoices, Rs 106,10,58,783, be ordered paid, as APTEL had done on the first. Rule 4 of the Electricity (Late Payment Surcharge and Related Matters) Rules, 2022 requires payments to go first to surcharge, and Rule 10 to the oldest bill.
Relying on Faime Makers v. District Deputy Registrar, he said the petitioner should not have to go back to the forum for every invoice when the rules, the contracts and the legal question are the same.
The Advocate General’s answer
Mr Vijay Narayan, Advocate General, appeared for TNPDCL, TNGECL and TNERC. He said the 2022 Rules came into force on 3 June 2022, and that the appeal before APTEL challenges the TNERC order on limitation, retrospective application of the Rules and unilateral reappropriation.
He said KREL’s claim reopens ten years of accounts. The principal claimed is Rs 210.48 crore, against about Rs 553 crore paid on energy bills by all the entities. Payments went under covering letters, were accepted for over a decade, and Clayton’s rule yields to a contrary intention.
The disputes were factual and contractual, he said, and Clause 11 of the agreements with Section 86(1)(f) of the Electricity Act, 2003 makes TNERC the forum. He relied on Kerala State Electricity Board v. Kurien E. Kalathil, Joshi Technologies International v. Union of India and Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam v. Essar Power.
Why an interim order did not travel
The court held that the petitioner never approached TNERC on these four invoices. It said:
“the petitioner has an efficacious alternate remedy of approaching the TNERC” (para 23)
That forum, the judge added, is functional today.
The judge accepted that an issue decided between the same parties should be followed on other bills. But the legal position had not been settled here. TNERC ruled for the petitioner, the matter is in appeal, and APTEL has granted only interim relief.
Such an order is made after weighing the amount and the balance of convenience, the judge held. It cannot be extrapolated into a settled legal position, and TNPDCL or TNGECL cannot be directed to follow it on other invoices.
The court added that factual questions remain for these claims too. They include whether any communication accompanied each payment, whether it was accepted in reconciliation, and whether the account should be treated as reconciled and closed.
Because Kamuthi Renewable Energy had been amalgamated into the petitioner, the court accepted the matter could be called inter partes. Still, it said an interim order “cannot be ipso facto extrapolated to the connected claims” without a similar order from a tribunal or court (para 26).
Order
The writ petition stands dismissed with liberty to approach TNERC in respect of the four supplementary invoices. There is no order as to costs, and the connected miscellaneous petitions are closed.