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2016 (1) TMI 1115 - SC - Indian LawsPrinciples of promissory estoppel - whether Principles can be invoked in favour of the appellants so as to entitle them to the benefit of concessional tariff of electricity? - Held that:- The principle of promissory estoppel would have no application to the case of the appellants so as to entitle the applellants any right to the continuation of the concessional tariff earlier granted. The appellants have urged certain other issues to persuade the court to strike down the impugned action of the respondents in withdrawing the concessional tariff, the foremost being that the industries in question had earned no profits so as to attract the withdrawal/disabling condition introduced in the Amended Schedule. In this regard it is pointed out that Kothari Industrial Corporation Ltd. had incurred losses as a whole though its caustic soda unit, to whom concessional tariff was promised and granted, may have earned a profit. The concessional tariff having been granted to the industry by the Act in question, though in respect of its caustic soda unit, the assessment of profit/loss made by the industry as a whole and not by the unit alone, cannot be said to be an arbitrary or irrational basis for determining the application of the impugned G.O. to the appellants in C.A.Nos.9748 and 9750 of 2003. Similarly in the case of the appellant National Oxygen Ltd. the refusal of the respondent to compute the issue of profit/loss by distributing the depreciation of cylinders for a period of five years instead of the first year in which the depreciation was allowed, as claimed, cannot be termed as an unjustified basis for holding the industry to be a profit making enterprise. The contention on the above score made on behalf of the appellant National Oxygen, therefore, is of no consequence. Similarly the withdrawal of the G.O. 861 dated 30.4.1982 in the year 1988 and a reversal to the situation prevailing earlier cannot invalidate the G.O. (No. 861 dated 30.4.1982) inasmuch as it is for the State and not for the court to determine what should be the policy for grant/refusal of concessional power at different points of time. These are questions that must be left to the State and not to the Courts to decide.
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