U. N. BHACHAWAT, J.

( 1 ) THIS is a revision by the defendant against the order dated 12th December, 1977 of the Court of Civil Judge, Class II, Bilaspur in Civil Suit No. 208-A of 1976.

( 2 ) THE revision has arisen out of the suit filed by the plaintiff/non-applicant herein, for a declaration that the defendants are not entitled to recover Rupees 1,688. 06 paise as the energy charges from the plaintiff and for a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from disconnecting the electric connection of the plaintiff for non-payment of the said amount.

( 3 ) THE case of the plaintiff, as set out in the plaint, was that since the installation of electric service connection Number IP/72, 30 M. P. on the Oil Mill premises of the plaintiff at Bilha, it was being regularly checked by the officials of the defendants and was always found to be in proper order and the defandants werp accepting the payment of monthly bills for the consumption of the electrical energy from the plaintiff according to the consumption of the energy registered by the meter, read, noted and signed by the officials of the defendant; that demand by the defendants vide their supplementary bill, dated 15-9-1976, for consumption of energy from the date of the installation on the ground that the meter was defective and not registering correct consumption, is illegal; there is no defect in the meter and as such the threat of the defendant to disconnect in case of default of payment of the said bill is also unauthoritative.

( 4 ) THE defendant while resisting the suit of the plaintiff raised a preliminary objection that the suit of the plaintiff was not maintainable for the reasons that :-

(a) the plaintiff did not comply with the condition precedent of depositing the suit amount as required per Section 5 (2) of the M. P. Electrical Undertaking Dues Recovery Act, and

(b) the dispute is regarding the defect in meter and Section 26 (6) of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910 (hereinafter referred to as 'the electricity Act') provides for settlement of such dispute by the arbitration of the Electrical Inspector.

It may be mentioned that the trial Court rejected the preliminary objection on both the counts. The finding with regard to the non-maintainability of the suit on account of non-compliance with provisions of Section 5 (2) of the Recovery act is not challenged by the learned counsel for the applicants for different reasons; but all the same it is not necessary to deal with that question. The objection regarding the maintainability on account of Section 26 (6) of the electricity Act has been dismissed by the trial Court holding that this section is not attracted as "the pleadings of the parties in the suit in this connection are amply clear that there was no defect in the meter but the defendants alleged that there was defect in (its) using. Therefore, this naturally does away with the necessity of referring the matter to the Electrical Inspector. "

( 5 ) THE submission of the learned counsel for the defendants was that according to the pleading of the parties unequivocally the dispute between the parties is on the question whether the meter was defective and not recording correct consumption of energy; and therefore, Section 26 (2) of the Indian Electricity act was attracted and therefore reading Sections 32 and 33 of the Indian arbitration Act along with Section 46 of the Arbitration Act a Civil suit is barred.

( 6 ) THE argument of the learned counsel for the plaintiff in counter was that the dispute is not with regard to the defect in meter so as to attract the provisions relating to arbitration contained Section 26 (6) of the Electricity Act. His further argument was that even on the assumption that the dispute was relating to the defect in the meter, the only course available to the defendants by virtue of section 26 (6) of the Electricity Act was to have made an application under section 34 of the Arbitration Act without having participated in the proceedings,

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