Did dropping of top lawyer, key official switching sides hurt PSPCL in court?
File that could have revealed the reason behind change of lawyer also missing
PATIALA: With the Punjab government’s power purchase agreements (PPAs) with private thermal plants becoming a political issue due to high tariff, skeletons are tumbling out of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) closet.
It has emerged that PSPCL dropped the lawyer, MG Ramachandran, who had won the coal washing charges case for the corporation in Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission and Appellate Tribunal for Electricity when the case went to the Supreme Court. After losing the case in the top court, the coal washing charges will now cost the PSPCL around ₹500 crore annually for the next 20 years.
A POSSIBLE QUID PRO QUO
Interestingly, the PSPCL official dealing with the case, then superintending engineer SK Kansal, joined one of the private thermal plants PSPCL was fighting a legal battle against, raising suspicion of a possible quid pro quo. Kansal was responsible for filing replies and hiring lawyers to defend PSPCL in coal washing charges case against Nabha Power Limited (NPL) and Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL).
Kansal joined the TSPL after retirement in 2018 and even appeared for the firm in PSERC and other forums against the PSPCL. Ramachandran had even written to the corporation management that Kansal was not providing him the requisite information/documents, that brings Kansal under scrutiny. HT has the copy of the demi-official letter from Ramachandran.
The file noting that could have given an insight into under what circumstances the lawyer was changed has gone missing from PSPCL office.
Not only this, the PSPCL management had given approval to hire senior lawyer former Union minister P Chidambaram to represent it in the Supreme Court, but he was not asked to appear in the case until power corporation lost the first case against the Nabha Power Limited (NPL) in December 2017. The case against Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL) was also lost on the basis of Supreme Court’s judgment in the NPL case. A team of lawyers led by Ramachandran had won the coal washing charges case filed by Larsen and Toubro (L&T) that ran Rajpura Thermal Plant (NPL) and Talwandi Sabo plant ran by Vedanta group for PSPCL in 2016 in the regulatory commission and later the appellate tribunal rejected the appeal of the firms running the thermal plants on December 14, 2016.
The L&T moved Supreme Court on January 5, 2017, during the tenure of SAD-BJP government and Ramachandran was dropped from defending the case. Top lawyers HN Salve and former attorney general of India Mukul Rohtagi appeared for L&T in the apex court.
MYSTERY OVER CHANGE OF LAWYER
“Who dropped lawyer Ramachandran and why is a mystery, as the file noting is missing from the record. The case was filed in the Supreme Court in January 2017, but we have record only from July 2017, when the then CMD A Venu Prasad appointed senior lawyer V Giri in the case,” said a PSPCL management official.
Later, Venu Prasad even roped in Ramachandran, but by that time NPL case had been decided against PSPCL.
Decision on the legal battle was taken by the PSPCL management and the Punjab advocate general office was neither taken into loop nor consulted when the litigation process was going on.
Then PSPCL CMD A Venu Prasad said: “It’s a fact that lawyer was changed, but I was not aware how it was done. And when it came to my notice, I approved hiring of senior lawyer V Giri. Later, I even entrusted Ramachandran with the case.” Power corporation CMD Baldev Singh Sran, however, refused to comment.
When contacted, Kansal said: “I did nothing wrong. The lawyers are approved by the management upon our proposal. I don’t remember how Ramachandran was dropped. May be he was not in list of our department’s panel of lawyers for apex court.”
On joining the private thermal plant, he said, “Yes, I appeared for TSPL as a consultant. There is no bar to join a company after retirement”, refuting the quid pro quo charge.
On Ramachandran’s remark against him, Kansal said: “It could be an afterthought of some officials to save their skin. I am not aware of any such DO letter of Ramachandran”.