The Centre on Thursday submitted to the Supreme Court that it was not possible to supply additional power surrendered by Delhi to Tamil Nadu.
The Centre told a bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir that the power grid in the State had not got the ability for absorbing the power.
“The grid has not got the capacity for absorbing additional power and Tamil Nadu is itself responsible for it,” Attorney General, G E Vahanvati, told the bench.
He said the State has filed the petition before the apex court on superficial ground.
The bench, however, said it would look into the matter and issued notice to the Centre and asked it to file its reply. It also asked the Central Electricity Authority to file a report on the issue and listed the case for further hearing on November 29.
The bench was hearing a suit filed by Tamil Nadu for direction to the Centre to reallocate the entire power surrendered by Delhi — 230 MW round-the-clock and 1,491 MW between midnight and 6 a.m. — to it.
The Tamil Nadu in its petition said that due to failure of the South-West monsoon, it is facing acute shortage of power and the Centre should not reallocate the surrendered power to the other States.