KCR asks Justice Narasimha to recuse from PPAs inquiry

Hyderabad: Former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday asked Justice L Narasimha Reddy to exit from the responsibilities of heading the Commission of Inquiry for its partisan approach in conducting the probe.

In a 12-page letter to the chairman of the Commission, which is probing into PPAs from Chhattisgarh and the construction of Bhadradri and Yadadri Thermal power projects, KCR said that the commission was working with a “biased and predetermined” mindset.

Defending the decisions taken by his government at that time, KCR said that the newly formed Telangana struggled due to power crisis in the initial times and to overcome the situation, his government had to buy power from other states. At that time, the present Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who was a TDP MLA, had written to the Electricity Regulatory Commissions (ERC) raising objections on power purchase from Chhattisgarh but the latter gave clearance after considering the objections.

KCR said, “Section 64 (5) of the Electricity Act 2003 clearly enunciates that such an authority is vested with the State ERCs only and based on this the ERCs ratified the PPAs.”

The former CM said, “Despite you being a legal luminary, you made unfounded comments. This makes it clear that you have lost moral ground to inquire and hence I request you to relieve yourself from the responsibility.”

KCR also said in the letter when Telangana had a PPA with Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu also made a PPA through tender basis at a unit rate of Rs 4.94. In the same year, Karnataka also opted for a PPA through a tender basis at a unit rate of Rs 4.33 while Telangana purchased at Rs 3.90 per unit. This being the situation, how can it be said that Telangana paid heavy costs? Hence I request you to voluntarily step down,” KCR in his letter said.

Referring to the construction of the two thermal projects, KCR said the BRS government had obtained all permissions to establish the power generation units. The BRS chief wondered why the commission raised objections to the sub critical Bhadradri project. The Centre was about to introduce super critical thermal power generation technology in 2015 and the state government initiated a process to set up new units at the same time.

All permissions were given to the subcritical technology project in Kothagudem and super critical thermal unit at Damaracherla in Nalgonda district. “But the current government had ordered the commission of inquiry with a clear political motive and to discredit the earlier government,” he said.

“Your way of functioning is contrary to the well enunciated principles and processes. It is very clear that you have formed a predetermined opinion that mistakes were committed and it is indicative of your biased view that could be reflected in the final report. I humbly request you to recuse yourself from the responsibilities of heading the commission of inquiry,” KCR said in the letter.