Bypassing expert tribunals through writs: Judicial overreach in review of the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission’s orders

A 2023 decision of the Supreme Court underscored the importance of judicial deference to expert bodies, stating that the High Court should have remanded a technical matter to the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (‘APTEL’) instead of adjudicating it itself. Judicial review of ERC orders cannot be eliminated, but the grounds and scope of judicial review should be confined within well-settled principles of administrative law. Many challenges against the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (‘TSERC’) orders are filed before the Telangana High Court: in 2021-22, 12 appeals from TSERC were filed before aptel, while 85 appeals were filed before the Telangana High Court (i.e., over seven times the number of appeals before aptel). We analysed writ petitions and appeals involving TSERC before the Telangana High Court between 2014-2022 and examined whether judicial review of the TSERC’s orders by the Telangana High Court is within the permitted limits in administrative law. We propose to conduct similar studies for other SERCAs and a comparative study across SERCs.