Recently, the Himachal High Court has banned the collection of electricity duty charges from some industrial units under the notification issued on September 1, 2023. While imposing this ban, the court also ordered the industrial units to continue paying electricity duty at the old concessional rate.

The bench headed by Justice Ajay Mohan Goyal passed these orders after a preliminary hearing of the cases filed by ACME Generies Private Limited and other industrial units. The applicant company has challenged the notification issued on September 1, 2023, through a petition, saying that under this notification, increased rates on electricity are being wrongly collected from them.

Whereas he has obtained approval and concession in this regard as per the Himachal Pradesh Single Window Investment Promotion and Facilitation Act 2018. According to the applicant company, they expanded their industrial unit as per the industrial policy. After this, the applicant company applied for concessional electricity duty clearance as per the Single Window Investment Promotion and Facilitation Act 2018. On the application of the applicant company, the state government gave a one percent concession in electricity duty and approved giving this concession for the next five years.

According to the notification from the state government, collecting electricity duty at increased rates from the applicant company is against the law. The State High Court, prima facie agreeing with the arguments of the applicant company, passed a stay order on charging electricity duty from the applicant company as per the notification passed on September 1, 2023.