APTEL rejects NTPC Renewable Rs 2.35 crore change in law claim never made before RERC or notified under PPA

The solar developer paid Rs 11.75 crore in grid connectivity charges instead of Rs 9.40 crore after Rajasthan raised the rate five days past the bid deadline, but watched two co-respondents claim the increase as change in law and said nothing until appeal.

The Appellate Tribunal for Electricity has dismissed NTPC Renewable Energy Limited's appeal seeking to have a ₹50,000 per MW increase in Rajasthan's grid connectivity charges recognised as a change in law under its solar power purchase agreements, without deciding whether the increase qualifies. In a judgment of 22 October 2026, Judicial Member Virender Bhat, writing for himself and Technical Member Ajay Talegaonkar, held that the developer had never made the claim before the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission even as two other generators in the same proceedings did, and could not raise it for the first time in appeal. The claim would in any event have failed because NTPC Renewable never served the notice that Article 12.3 of its PPA makes mandatory. At stake was the difference between the ₹11.75 crore the company paid and the ₹9.40 crore it says was payable at the earlier rate.

Bids closed on 28 October; the charge rose on 2 November

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) issued a request for selection on 16 July 2020 for 1,070 MW of grid-connected solar PV capacity in Rajasthan under Tranche III of tariff-based competitive bidding. The last date for bids was 28 October 2020. On that date the RERC Renewable Energy Regulations, 2015 were in force, and Regulation 48 fixed grid connectivity charges at ₹2 lakh per MW. On 2 November 2020 the Commission notified the RERC (Terms and Conditions for Determination of Tariff from Renewable Energy Sources) Regulations, 2020, and Regulation 89.1 read with Regulation 48 of the new regulations raised the charge to ₹2.5 lakh per MW.

SECI declared NTPC Renewable a successful bidder on 28 December 2020 and issued a letter of award for 470 MW. Two PPAs followed on 3 June 2021, for 320 MW and 150 MW, and SECI signed back-to-back power sale agreements with Rajasthan Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (RUVNL) on 13 July 2021 for the full 1,070 MW. NTPC Renewable paid the enhanced charge: ₹11.75 crore rather than the ₹9.40 crore the 2015 rate would have produced.

Three rounds before the Commission, and who asked for what

RUVNL petitioned the Commission (Petition No. 1905/2021) for adoption of the tariff for the three Rajasthan discoms. Green Infra Wind Energy Limited, one of the selected developers, applied to be impleaded, and by order of 23 July 2021 the Commission brought in all successful generators as respondents, NTPC Renewable among them. The generators asked for various events to be declared change in law under their PPAs and for timelines to be extended. The Commission adopted the tariff that day but declined to examine the change in law claims, leaving the generators free to file fresh petitions.

Green Infra appealed (Appeal No. 251/2021), and on 12 October 2021 APTEL remanded. It held that an event falling within the PPA's definition of change in law can be recognised at the tariff adoption stage, with the impact quantified later, and that “it is the duty of the State Commission to inquire into such claim” at the first opportunity. The Commission was told to decide the three claims Green Infra had raised, preferably within two months.

On remand, AEW India North One Private Limited's separate petition (No. 1933/2021) was clubbed with the main matter. Four claims were pressed: the increase in basic customs duty on imported solar inverters under the Finance Ministry notification of 1 February 2021, a GST notification, the Supreme Court's order of 19 April 2021 in the Great Indian Bustard case (M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India) requiring power lines in the bird's priority and potential habitats to be laid underground, and the grid connectivity increase. Reading the remand order as confined to three events, the Commission on 13 December 2021 accepted the customs duty changes on inverters and on solar cells and modules as change in law, and rejected the bustard claim because the bid was not location-specific. The developers appealed again (Appeal Nos. 344/2021 and 9/2022), and on 28 January 2022 APTEL directed the Commission to decide the remaining claims while reserving their right to contest the bustard ruling.

In the third round, the grid connectivity claim was pressed by AEW India, which had raised it in its own petition, and by Green Infra, which filed an application for it after the second remand. Paragraph 51 of the Commission's order of 31 August 2022 records the claim as theirs alone. The Commission rejected it, noting that the transmission utility had sought an increase to ₹3 lakh per MW or actual bay cost, that connectivity costs move with material and equipment prices, and that under the PPAs grid connectivity is the developer's responsibility along with the risks and costs incidental to it.

The appeal narrows to one claim

NTPC Renewable's appeal originally also challenged the Commission's refusal to treat the Great Indian Bustard directions on bird flight diverters as change in law. On 21 July 2026 its counsel confined the appeal to the grid connectivity claim.

Shri Venkatesh, for NTPC Renewable, argued that a contractual obligation to obtain connectivity does not take a statutory increase in the charge for it outside the change in law clause. The 2020 Regulations were notified after the bid deadline and sit within the PPA's definition of law, which covers any statute, ordinance, regulation, notification, rule or other instrument having the force of law. He relied on GMR Warora Energy Ltd v. CERC, (2023) 10 SCC 401.

Amal Nair for RUVNL and Anushree Bardhan for SECI answered on maintainability first. The impugned order dealt with three generators; the grid connectivity claim had been made by the other two, and NTPC Renewable could not raise it for the first time before the Tribunal. On merits the Commission was right that connectivity risk sat with the developer. And no notice under Article 12.3 of the PPA had ever been served. In rejoinder, NTPC Renewable said Article 12 does not make notice a condition precedent, that having resisted the identical claim from AEW India and Green Infra below the respondents could not now take a technical plea of no notice, and that it disputed the assertion that it had not raised the claim. It relied on APTEL's decision in Parampujya Solar Energy Pvt Ltd v. CERC (Appeal No. 256 of 2019 and batch).

A claim not made below cannot be made on appeal

The Tribunal found the record clear. Only AEW India and Green Infra had agitated the grid connectivity claim; NTPC Renewable had raised nothing, neither in its reply to RUVNL's petition nor by application. It knew of the increase, because the 2020 Regulations applied to it, and it had every opportunity across three rounds of hearings. Nothing was said on its behalf about what had prevented it from filing. It is trite law, the bench said, that a substantive claim cannot be raised for the first time in appeal when it was never put to the forum of original jurisdiction.

There was a second, related difficulty. To maintain an appeal, the appellant must show it is aggrieved by the part of the order it attacks. Having never asked for compensation, NTPC Renewable could not claim to be aggrieved by the rejection of a claim made by others; its silence indicated that it had not been interested in the benefit. On this ground alone, the Tribunal held, the appeal had to fail.

Article 12.3: a 60-day notice that cannot be waived

The bench went on to the notice point. Article 12.3.1 of the PPA provides that a developer affected by a change in law that wishes to claim under Article 12 shall give notice to SECI and the buying utility as soon as reasonably practicable, and no later than 60 days from the date of occurrence. Article 12.3.2 requires the notice to give precise details of the change and its effect on project cost, supported by documentary evidence including a statutory auditor's certificate establishing a one-to-one correlation. The word used is shall, the Tribunal said; SECI and RUVNL had to be put on notice before relief could be claimed. Waiving the requirement would mean disregarding a clause the parties had agreed to at signing. NTPC Renewable conceded that no notice had been served, so its argument that notice was not a condition precedent, and that the respondents were precluded from raising it, had no force.

Nor did Parampujya help. In that case the generator had not claimed against the Chhattisgarh discom at all and had not made it a party; the Commission impleaded the discom as a necessary party by order of 20 September 2018, and the Tribunal treated that impleadment as notice. Here the discom itself had filed the tariff petition, and NTPC Renewable sat as a respondent alongside AEW India and Green Infra while they raised the connectivity claim, saw the Commission decline to consider it in December 2021, and saw it reheard after the January 2022 remand. Through all of this, the Tribunal said, the appellant “remained in deep slumber” and filed nothing.

The Tribunal did not rule on whether the Commission was right to treat the increase as a developer's risk under the PPA. It saw no fault with that view on a prima facie basis, but said a detailed discussion belonged in any appeals AEW India and Green Infra might file against the same order, since the Commission's observations had been made on their claims.

Order

The Tribunal found no merit in the appeal and dismissed it. NTPC Renewable's claim to compensation for the increase in grid connectivity charges from ₹2 lakh to ₹2.5 lakh per MW was not entertained, having been raised for the first time in appeal and without the notice required under Article 12.3 of the PPA. The Commission's order of 31 August 2022 in Petition No. 1905/2021 stands.