Sarjoo Prosad, C.J.—This application has been presented by the Rajputana Cold Storage and Refrigeration Ltd., which for the sake of brevity will be hereinafter called the petitioner Company. It prays for a writ of certiorari quashing a notice dated 6th September 1957, issued by the Executive Engineer, Electrical Department, Government of Rajasthan, and also for a writ of mandamus against the respondents, the Government of Rajasthan and the said Executive Engineer, directing them not to realise the amount claimed in the notice and also commanding them to reconnect the premises of the petitioner for supply of electrical energy.

2. The petitioner company was registered in the year 1947 under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. It has been running its business of cold storage ever since, having its registered office located at Cold Storage Building, Jotwara, Jaipur. In the year in question, it appears that sanction was accorded to the Managing Agents of the Company, Messrs. Jath Brothers and Company, for starting the concern in the city of Jaipur on the terms and conditions embodied in the then Jaipur Government Order No. 1115/SC, dated 4th September, 1947. Meters were duly installed in the concern and the petitioners commenced their business. After the formation of the State of Rajasthan, the then Government of Jaipur merged into the State of Rajasthan. In September 1951, the Executive Engineer, Electrical Department, who is the second respondent in this application, issued a letter to the petitioner that the bills supplied to the petitioner for the consumption of electricity were not correctly recorded and that in the said bills, the petitioner had been charged for an abnormally low consumption, due to oversight in reading the meters. The respondents claimed that the supply of the energy was to be calculated at the normal rate of three annas per unit and since the supply in the petitioners premises was through current transformers having a ratio of 100 : 5 amperes, the units shown in the meters had to be multiplied twenty times in order to give the correct reading. The bills sent to the petitioner from time to time were merely at the readings recorded in the meters without taking any notice of the ratio shown by the current transformers. The Executive Engineer accordingly claimed that the petitioner had to be charged not only for 19053 Units during the relevant peri d, but that he should be charged twenty times those units which were left uncharged and the amount claimed accordingly amounted to the tune of Rs. 67,876/5/-. The case of the petitioner is that there was no mistake of reading; that the consumptions were actually at concessional rates as embodies in clause (c) of the conditions under which sanction to start the business was accorded by the then Jaipur Government; and that the meters were installed in the premises of the Company by the servants and agents of the opposite party who also presented the bills to the petitioner from time to time during the period of about 2.1/2 years in due course of business and received payment of the same regularly. The petitioner therefore submitted that the opposite party was estopped from claiming anything by way of arrears, as suggested in their letter for a period of about three years, when payments had been already made against the bills submitted by the opposite party. The petitioner also alleges to have made a representation to the Government against the demand, when it was given an assurance that the matter would be considered by the Government but pending consideration, the petitioner should make payment, on the faith of which it made some payments. Eventually, on the 6th of September 1957, the opposite party (No. 2) issued notice threatening to di connect the petitioner Company on its failure to pay the amount claimed, which by then had run up to about Rs. 84,000/-. The said notice of demand and threat to disconnect electric installation is challenged as illegal and without jurisdi

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