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19. To satisfy the conscious of Court, let the objections be considered on merit. It is the admitted position that the abovementioned petitions have been filed by the petitioner under Section 34 of the Act for setting aside the arbitral award dated 4th February, 2008. Brief facts of the application are that in view of unauthorized tapping of electricity from JJ Basti in Delhi, the DVB in the 59th meeting of its board held on 19th August,1998,initiated a proposal for providing bulk electricity supply on a single point and of engaging agencies for each colony to take the said bulk supply at its own costs and expenditure for providing electricity to the residents of such colonies. The Special Secretary, Department of Power and Water of the Government of Delhi vide letter dated 18th September, 1988/21st September, 1998 accepted the proposal of the DVB with certain modifications. The modifications suggested were for all the clauses regarding guaranteeing of 75% of the estimated current revenue which was to be the responsibility of the contractor. The DVB vide its office order dated 5 th February 1999, framed further details of the scheme and provided that " The agency shall be responsible for collections of revenue to the extent of minimum 75 % of an estimated current revenue based on net energy recording on the bulk meter."

20. The petitioner applied for and was awarded contracts in respect of Shradhanand Park and Chandan Vihar thereafter was appointed as the contractor in respect of another unauthorized colony namely Tomar Colony. As per the petitioner, the minimum revenue clause was 75% in respect of Shradhanand Park and 50 % of the metered supply in respect of the other two colonies. The petitioner submits that in the present case the dispute relates to the Chandan Vihar SPD contract. The commission to which the petitioner was entitled to under the contract was initially fixed at 20% increased to 25%.Though as per the petitioner, he was liable to pay the revenue of only 50% in case of Chandan Vihar and Tomar Colony and 75% in case of Shradhanand Park, the DVB whilst raising its bills, showed only the rebate towards commission and did not reflect the rebate towards AT&C. The petitioner on various occasions brought the said situation to the notice of the officials of the DVB who never threatened the petitioner with disconnection. The respondent No.1 became the successor of the DVB pursuant to the Delhi Electricity Reforms Act, 2002 , privatization but continued with the past practice of erstwhile DVB and did not give rebate towards AT&C, in October 2006 started threatening the petitioner for disconnection of electricity supplied on the ground of non-payment of amounts shown as arrears in the bills.

24. Inter alia, the grounds taken by the petitioner in his petitions are that

(a) The learned Arbitrator is a retired employee of the erstwhile DVB , on the pay roll of respondent No.1 , instructs respondent No.1 on all the issues. This shows that the learned Arbitrator acted with bias and prejudiced mind as opposed to the Principle of equity, fair play and natural justice. The learned Arbitrator gave no opportunity to the petitioner to lead the evidence, after the pleadings of the parties were completed the petitioner filed application to lead evidence however the said application was dismissed simply because it was recorded that the parties do not wish to submit any other pleading or submissions in writing despite the fact it was specifically asked for. This shows that the entire proceedings and the final impugned award was violative of principle of equity, fair play and natural justice. The learned Arbitrator failed to appreciate that it is respondent No.1 who agreed to grant (additional) rate of 2% on account of AT&C losses and there is no justification for the respondent No.1 to not grant the similar percentage of rebate when it is being granted the rebate of about 48% for the area in reference. He failed to appreciate the over all contents and scope of the agreement executed between the parties particularly the concept of the minimum revenue as incorporated in clause 4 of the agreement and of commission as incorporated in clause 7 and that the respondent No.1 has proceeded on the premise that the bill is to be raised for the 100% and not as per agreement between the parties. He also failed to appreciate that once certain benefits have got accrued for distribution of the electricity to the successor of DVB, there is no reason why the same should not be granted for the distribution of the electricity in the area in reference particularly when the petitioner could be taken as an agent of the respondent No.1/erstwhile DVB.

(b) Judgment and order dated 11th April, 2012 delivered by Justice S. Muralidhar in OMP No.112/2006 wherein it has been held as under :

"14. The arbitration clause in the agreement grants the predecessor-in-interest of NDPL, i.e. the DVB, the right to nominate even its employee as an arbitrator. It expressly states that the Petitioner shall have no objection if an employee of the DVB is nominated as Arbitrator. If the Petitioner could not object to an employee of the DVB acting as an Arbitrator then surely the Petitioner cannot object to an Advisor of NDPL acting as such. In view of the wording of the arbitration clause, the Petitioner must be held to have waived its right to object to the impartiality of such arbitrator in terms of Section 12 read with Section 13 of the Act. Therefore, it mattered little that the learned Arbitrator did not expressly disclose his being an Advisor to NDPL as required by Section 12 (1) and (2) of the Act. Further, for the purposes of Sections 12 and 13 of the Act, there had to be circumstances which were likely to give "justifiable doubts" as to the independence or impartiality of the learned Arbitrator. With the Petitioner agreeing to even an employee of the DVB being an Arbitrator it cannot possibly contend that it harboured "justifiable doubts" as regards the Arbitrator who was a nominee of the DVB, or its successor-in- interest, NDPL. Consequently, the challenge to the impugned Award on the ground of lack of impartiality of the learned Arbitrator is hereby rejected.