The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that the Summit Power Limited (SPL), a leading energy supply company, is not eligible to get the amount that it has been demanding from the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) as an additional cost of energy production.
The amount is about Tk 11 billion including interest, according to the BREB lawyers. However, the SPL's lawyer could not confirm the amount claimed.
A five-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, delivered the verdict after allowing three appeal petitions, filed by the BREB against a High Court (HC) verdict.
The apex court also ruled that the company has to sell electricity to the BREB at the price set by the government.
Lawyers Fida M Kamal, Murad Reza, Mehedi Hassan Chowdhury and Shaik Mohammad Zakir Hossain appeared in the hearing on behalf of the BREB, while Probir Neogi, Tanjib ul Alam, Mustafizur Rahman Khan and Karishma Jahan represented the SPL.
Zakir Hossain said, "The SPL signed an agreement with the BREB in 2000, under which it contracted to sell electricity to three units of the BREB in Dhaka, Cumilla and Narsingdi. The agreement was supplemented later. Tariff was fixed as BST minus Tk 0.03 per unit."
"Later, due to increase in the BST level, the company demanded additional production cost from the BREB. However, the Ministry of Energy and Power instructed the BREB not to give the additional payment."
"In this circumstance, the SPL filed a case with the Arbitration Tribunal of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), in support of its claim."
