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Section 59: Information with respect to levels of performance

Electricity Act • Official Statutory Text & Practice Guide

Statutory Regulation
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Competent Court / Tribunal
Act 2003
Section 58 All 185 Sections of Electricity Act Section 60

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 59

Section 59 of the Act requires every distribution licensee to furnish quarterly performance reports to the Appropriate Commission detailing achieved levels of performance, customer complaints, and compensation disbursed.

  • Mandatory Periodic Performance Disclosure: Obligates licensees to submit comprehensive quarterly statistics on outage durations, transformer failure rates, billing dispute closures, and compensation payments.
  • Public Dissemination & Regulatory Scrutiny: Requires the Commission to publish annual summaries of licensee performance in newspapers and digital public dashboards.
  • Trigger for Regulatory Penalties: Empowers the Commission to initiate suo motu penalty proceedings under Section 142 against licensees showing persistent failure to achieve mandated performance levels.
Key Landmark Precedents:
  • Brihanmumbai Electric Supply v. MERC (2013) 4 SCC 71: Supreme Court held that transparent disclosure of performance metrics under Section 59 is indispensable to ensure regulatory accountability.
  • West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission v. CESC Ltd. (2002) 8 SCC 715: Affirmed that public scrutiny of licensee efficiency is a core pillar of modern electricity regulatory governance.
  • Tata Power Co. Ltd. v. Reliance Energy Ltd. (2009) 16 SCC 659: Affirmed the Commission's power to penalize licensees for concealing or misreporting performance statistics.
Courtroom Practice & Strategic Litigation Guidance:

Consumer advocacy groups and industrial consumer federations should analyze Section 59 quarterly disclosures to expose high distribution losses and unjustified downtime during annual tariff hearings.

Section 58 All 185 Sections of Electricity Act Section 60