Construction of fountains
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 15: High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has directed the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) to release Rs 40.71 lakh to the petitioner in respect of construction of two fountains at Hyderpora Crossing Srinagar within a period of four weeks.
The petitioner, a Government approved contract of the SMC, on the directions of the then Chief Minister carried out construction of two fountains. A formal approval of the work was granted by SMC vide order dated 12-10-2017. Soon after the completion of allotted work, the petitioner submitted his bills amounting to Rs 40.71 lakh which were acknowledged and admitted by SMC but the admitted liability has not been cleared till date.
However, the counsel appearing on behalf of respondents submitted that no administrative approval for the construction of the work in question was ever sanctioned by the competent authority.
After hearing both the sides, Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal observed, “surprisingly, the same authority had issued instructions/directions to initiate the work on exigency/war footing basis and on the strength of the approval, the communication came to be issued by the Executive Engineer to the petitioner to start the work and subsequently once the work was completed by the petitioner, the same authority have taken a plea that there was no formal approval”.
“Since there were a series of communications between the parties which have not been denied by the respondents and accordingly it can safely be concluded that there was a binding contract between the parties and the respondents cannot escape from their liability of making the payment to the petitioner arising out of the said binding contract”, Justice Nargal said.
“The jurisdiction of the High Court while exercising the powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is not restricted only to the review of the administrative actions and executive decisions of the State and in the light of the extended applicability of the “doctrine of promissory estoppels” of which the whole object is to see that the Government strikes to its promise and abides by it”, Justice Nargal said, adding “law does not put any bar or any fetters on the High Court in respect of exercising its writ jurisdiction in contractual matters”.
Accordingly, High Court directed SMC to pay Rs 40.71 lakh to the petitioner within a period of four weeks from today and in case, if the payment is not released within this period the petitioner will be held entitled to the interest at the rate of 6% from the date the payment was due and not released by the respondents.
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