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Power privatisation: Chandigarh assures HC no commitment letter will be issued till matter is in court
The court was hearing a 2020 plea in which the UT Powermen Union had challenged Chandigarh’s move to privatise power services
The UT administration has undertaken before the Punjab and Haryana high court that till the time the matter of power privatisation is pending before the court, it will not issue the letter of intent (LoI), declaring preliminary commitment, to the private company.
The high court bench of chief justice RS Jha and justice Arun Palli during the resumed hearing on Thursday recorded statements from both the petitioner, UT Powermen Union, and the administration that submitted that it had assured the former of the same.
The court was referring to a meeting held between the administration and the employees’ union amid massive power cuts after employees went on strike on February 22. After recording of this statement, the matter now stands adjourned for March 28.
The high court bench also granted time till the adjourned date to the central government and UT administration to address the issues raised by the union.
The petitioner had argued that the policy under which the services are being privatised in the city have not got a final nod from the government and that it was a draft policy. It was also argued that if at all services are to be privatised, it should be in those places, where the service providers had been running in losses, which was not the case of Chandigarh.
The court was hearing a 2020 plea in which the union had challenged UT’s move to privatise power services.
It was on January 7 that the Centre had given its nod to the UT administration’s proposal. UT had selected Kolkata-based industrial and services conglomerate RP-Sanjiv Goenka (RPSG) Group after the firm quoted the highest bid – ₹871 crore against the reserve price of ₹175 crore – for takeover of the services. EED was one of the seven companies in the race for taking over the department.
The strike by the powermen had resulted in widespread power disruption in Chandigarh on February 22 and 23, prompting the court to take suo motu note of the issue.
UT has told the court that employees who sabotaged the power supply and caused damage to the infrastructure will be dealt with strictly and recoveries will be effected from them. It had also told that disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against 143 employees, while services of 17 outsourced employees had been terminated. An FIR was registered on February 23 against eight persons, UT had told the court.
