Summary
The Supreme Court dismissed Damodar Valley Corporation’s tariff appeal. Its surviving statutory entitlement to interest on capital had already been serviced through return on normative equity and interest on the loan component under the binding earlier directions. Additional interest on the whole capital was not warranted. The challenge to reducing normative loans by cumulative depreciation could not be reopened after the first round became final; that legal question was not answered on merits.
Issues
- Whether statutory interest on capital required an additional allowance beyond return on equity and interest on normative debt.
- Whether the cumulative-depreciation methodology could be challenged after remand when it had not been disputed in the first round.
Provisions considered
- Section 38, Damodar Valley Corporation Act, 1948The statutory provision for interest on participating Governments’ capital survived the Electricity Act, but the earlier binding directions serviced that capital through the prescribed equity return and loan interest rather than a further duplicative allowance. (¶¶ 6, 12, 20, 21, 22, 23)
Held
- Section 38 continued to apply. The real issue was whether its benefit had already been allowed, not whether the statutory entitlement survived. (¶ 12)
- The binding earlier order treated operating-asset capital as both normative equity and debt, prescribed the relevant ratios, and required servicing through equity return and loan interest. The Commission had implemented those directions; the claim for an additional allowance on the entire capital was not established. (¶¶ 19, 20, 21, 22)
- The separate possibility concerning interest retained and ploughed back into capital did not establish an omitted allowance: that complaint and its particulars had not been presented as such. (¶ 23)
- Cumulative depreciation had already been used to reduce normative loans in the original tariff order. The Corporation had not challenged that method in the first round, which had become final; it could not reopen it after the limited remand. The Court therefore declined to answer that question of law. (¶¶ 24, 25, 26, 27)
Result
Appeal dismissed; no interference with the tariff determination. Cumulative-depreciation question declined on finality grounds. Parties to bear their respective costs.