The burden of proof lies on the party claiming a defect in the electricity meter, which was not substantiated by the plaintiff.

JUDGMENT :

K. RAJASEKAR, J.

This second appeal is filed challenging the concurrent finding of the Courts below in dismissing the suit for declaration and injunction against the defendants from disconnecting the electricity connection of the plaintiff/ Appellant herein.

2. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred herein according to their litigative status and rank before the Trial Court. The brief facts leading to filing of this appeal by the plaintiff are as follows:

2.1 The plaintiff is the Vice President and Secretary of Thiru Amman Educational Trust, which is running a college named "Muthu Arts and Science College" at Harur Town, Dharmapuri District. The college is having a consumer electricity connection bearing D.No.533 and on 08.11.2005, the second defendant has sent a letter stating that the electricity connection reading recorded in the consumer card varies with the actual electricity consumed by the plaintiff's college. However, the plaintiff has not replied immediately due to sudden demise of the plaintiff's father on 29.01.2006, subsequently, on 24.06.2006, the plaintiff had sent a reply letter calling upon certain clarification in this regard. On 29.04.2006, the defendants have sent a notice and demanded Rs.12,83,690/- as the electricity consumption charge from the plaintiff's college. Subsequently, the fourth defendant has also sent a letter dated 21.07.2006, stating that the user's meter is proper. On 08.11.2005, the second defendant has sent a letter stating that the meter was examined by the respondent and found that the meter reading is proper and entries in consumer card have been improperly made by one of the staff, who does meter reading. Aggrieved over the demand for payment of Rs.12,83,690/-, made by the second defendant, the plaintiff has come forward with the suit for declaration to declare that the notice dated 08.11.2005 issued by the second defendant is null and void and consequent injunction.

2.2 The fifth defendant filed his written statement, which is adopted by other defendants. They contended that the meter fixed in D.No.533 is working properly, whereas the concerned staff of the respondent had wrongly entered lesser consumption units than the units, actually consumed by the plaintiff. These false entries were made for the benefit of the plaintiff. The Officers of the defendant institution, inspected the premises and after verification, a notice dated 08.11.2005 was issued to the plaintiff to pay the actual consumption charges, but no reply was sent by the then Managing Trustee of the college. Since the Managing Trustee was died on 29.01.2006, no coercive steps were taken for recovering the due payment till 01.04.2006. On 05.05.2006, a notice was issued to the plaintiff, calling upon them to pay the entire electricity consumption charges on or before 15.05.2006, for which the plaintiff has requested some more time for payment and paid Rs.5,000/- as a first installment for the said arrears along with the electricity consumption charges for the month of April 2006. Thereafter, she has not come forward to pay the electricity consumption charges and filed this suit with an intention, to avoid payment. The fifth defendant also stated that the electricity meter fixed on the plaintiff's college was properly examined by the department to verify any defects or error in it and the same was found to be in order, thereby the plaintiff was asked to pay the actual consumption charges based on the meter reading. Thereby, this suit is liable to be dismissed.

2.3 Both Courts have framed relevant issues and after appreciating the evidence adduced on both sides and more particularly, the (Meter Relay Testing) MRT report, which has been marked by examining the Assistant Executive Engineer as P.W.2, accepted the case of the defendant and dismissed the suit. By marking the MRT report, it has been established that actual electricity consumption units were recorded in the meter, but at the time of recording the