Himachal Pradesh High Court has passed an important order and attached Himachal Bhawan located at Delhi Mandi House. These orders of the High Court have been given in the case related to non-return of money from the electricity company. The court has also ordered the Principal Secretary of the Electricity Department to conduct a fact-finding investigation in this matter, so that the responsibility of those officers can be fixed, whose negligence led to such a situation.
The court of Himachal High Court Justice Ajay Mohan Goyal has passed these orders for non-payment of upfront premium of Rs 64 crore to Seli Hydro Company. The court has also ordered the government to pay the upfront premium to the company along with seven percent interest from the date of filing of the petition.
At the same time, Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh has also reacted on the orders of the High Court to attach Himachal Bhawan with Shaili Hydro Project. He said that he has not yet read the entire order. He said that in Himachal, upfront premiums are taken under a policy and a new energy policy was made in the state in 2006. Under that, the amount of up front premium has been fixed. Now a front premium has to be paid whether a power project is built or not.
He said that the decisions coming under arbitration are also a matter of concern. The law is being ignored and our government went to the High Court against it. The amount of Rs. 64 crores which was to be deposited under arbitration will be studied now that the High Court has ordered it.
The 400 MW Seli Hydro Project was to be built on the Chenab River in Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh. In this project also, earlier in the arbitration, the state government had received an order to return the upfront money of Rs 64 crore deposited by the company with 7% interest, but the Himachal Pradesh government ignored this order of the court. After which this amount including interest has now reached Rs 150 crore. The next hearing of the case will be on December 6.
The power project was to be set up in Lahaul Spiti. At that time the government had given the task of road construction to BRO to implement the project. According to the agreement, the government was to provide basic facilities to the company, so that the company could start the project work on time, but this did not happen. The company filed a writ petition in the High Court in the year 2017. The company's advocate told the court that due to lack of facilities to set up the project, the company had to close the project and gave it back to the government.
The government confiscated the upfront premium on the entire matter. After hearing both the sides, the court ordered the government to pay Rs 64 crore upfront premium to the cell company. However, the government has filed an LPA against the court's decision.
