1 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 2025:CGHC:37467-DB NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR WPC No. 4041 of 2025 M/s B.P. Mishra And Co. - A Class Contractor Through Its Parner Shri Bimlesh Kumar Mishra, S/o Late Shri Bhagwati Prasad Mishra, Aged About 61 Years Having Registered Office At Rani Road, Korba (C.G.) - 495677 ... Petitioner versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Its Department, Water Resources Department, Mahanadi Bhawan, Atal Nagar, District- Raipur (C.G.) 2 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Secretary, Finance Department, Mahanadi Bhawan, Atal Nagar, District- Raipur (C.G.) 3 - Engineer-In-Chief Water Resources Department, Indravati Bhawan, Atal Nagar, District- Raipur (C.G.) 4 - Chief Engineer Hasdeo Basin, Water Resources Department, Bilaspur (C.G.) 5 - Superintending Engineer Water Resources Zone, Bilaspur (C.G.) SOURABH BHILWAR Digitally signed by SOURABH BHILWAR Date: 2025.08.02 11:26:19 +0530 2 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 6 - Executive Engineer Water Resources Division, Pendra Road, District- Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi (C.G.) ... Respondents (Cause title is taken from CIS) For Petitioner : Mr. Ashish Tiwari, Advocate For Respondents/ State : Mr. Prafull N. Bharat, Advocate General alongwith Mr. Shashank Thakur, Dy. Advocate General Hon'ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Hon'ble Shri Bibhu Datta Guru , Judge Judgment on Board Per Bibhu Datta Guru, Judge 31.07.2025 1. Heard Mr. Ashish Tiwari, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. Prafull N. Bharat, learned Advocate General alongwith Mr. Shashank Thakur, learned Dy. Advocate General appearing for the respondents/ State. 2. By way of this writ petition, the petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:- “a. To issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction thereby directing the Respondents to clear the final bill amount of Rs. 24,69,000/- pending with the Respondent authorities and to issue the Work Completion Certificate to the Petitioner and release the pending dues in reference to Agreement No. 10/D.L./2016-17 within a fixed time frame as may be directed by this Hon'ble Court in the interest of justice and equity; and/or, 3 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 b. Pass any other order or direction as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit, in the facts and circumstances of the present case.” 3. (i) Facts of the case in brief is that a tender was floated by the Respondents for the work of Construction of Main Canal from R.D. 6630 M to 10365 M. including Earth Work and Construction of Canal Structures C.D. 09 Nos Fall 01 Nos, H.R. 02 Nos Duct 01 No & V.R.B 04 Nos of Sonkachhar Tank Scheme in which the Petitioner participated as one of the bidders and was declared as L-1 bidder and further he was directed to make deposit of the Additional Security Deposit of Rs. 40,70,944/- vide letter dated 09/01/2017. The work order dated 24/01/2017 was awarded to him and an agreement was entered between the Petitioner and Respondent. Upon commencement of work and after completing substantial work at the site, the Petitioner was facing difficulties in carrying out the remaining work due to certain factors such as Non-availability of forest land, non-payment of compensation by the Government, intersection of railway line in the path of canal layout etc., and all the said difficulties were duly communicated to the Respondent Department as it was for the Respondent to provide a clear land site for carrying out the construction work of canal. (ii) It is further stated that so far as the remaining work was concerned, the Petitioner had completed the same in the year 4 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 2019 itself and was awaiting for clearance from the respondent so that further pending work could be completed. However, it was Department who said that the tender work would be closed on "as-is-where-is" basis and the work completed so far would be physically inspected and the remaining work shall be reduced from the scope of tender and the bill payments would be cleared on the basis of work done so far. The respondents said that the final bill would be cleared soon and the Department was in the process of obtaining revised administrative sanction as the funds available for the project was already exhausted and therefore additional funds were required and as and when the funds are received the final running bills of Petitioner would be cleared and the Work Completion Certificate as well as the amount of Security Deposit, and Earnest Money would also be released as per rules. However, even after passage of considerable time, no positive response came from the Respondent and the Petitioner kept in lurch making him run from pillar to post. (iii) The Petitioner wrote several letters as well as representations to Respondent No. 4 for clearance of final bill amount of Rs. 24,69,000/- and for issuance of the work completion certificate and for releasing the pending dues, however no regard was paid to the same. Further, due to non-issuance of the work completion certificate the Petitioner was also not able to participate in other fresh tenders as the work awarded under the subject tender 5 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 agreement was showing as "Work in hand" even though the work was completed at the site and no further work was required to be done. (iv) Being left with no other alternative, the Petitioner sent a legal notice to Respondent No. 2 to 4 seeking release of pending dues and issuance of work completion certificate. Thereafter, upon receipt of the aforesaid legal notice the Respondent authorities had orally assured the Petitioner that the pending dues would be released and work completion certificate would be issued at the earliest however, even after passage of substantial period, no action was taken by the Respondent authorities. Hence, this petition. 4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the action on the part of the respondent department caused mental agony, immense mental trauma and financial hardship, causing irreparable loss to the petitioner and the respondent department has not made any attempt in solving the hindrance. It will cause serious hardships to the Petitioner and would cause grave prejudice and loss of business. He would submit that despite submitting representation, petitioner has not been received any single penny of amount but the respondent authority has not taken any action towards the issue related to the petitioner, knowing that there is no fault on the part of the petitioner and the respondents have also not issued the work completion certificate 6 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 to the petitioner. As such, the writ petition deserves to be allowed. He relied upon the judgment of the Patna High Court in Raghoji House of Distribution Versus State of Bihar reported in 2022 SCC OnLine Pat 2368 5. On the other hand, learned respondents counsel oppose the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner and submits that the writ petition as framed and filed is not maintainable as the disputed question of facts cannot be adjudicated in writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 6. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the other documents appended with writ petition. 7. It is settled law that the High Court should not exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India when it raises disputed question of facts. 8. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Chairman, Grid Corporation of Orissa Ltd. (GRIDCO) and others v. Sukamani Das (Smt.) and another, (1999) 7 SCC 298 was dealing with the question of whether the High Court had made an error in entertaining a writ petition filed seeking compensation for the death of a person due to electrocution, which had allegedly been caused due to the negligence of the authorities. The Supreme Court in the said case observed as under: 7 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 "6. In our opinion, the High Court committed an error in entertaining the writ petitions even though they were not fit cases for exercising power under Article 226 of the Constitution. The High Court went wrong in proceeding on the basis that as the deaths had taken place because of electrocution as a result of the deceased coming into contact with snapped live wires of the electric transmission lines of the appellants, that "admittedly/prima facie amounted to negligence on the part of the appellants". The High Court failed to appreciate that all these cases were actions in tort and negligence was required to be established firstly by the claimants. The mere fact that the wire of the electric transmission line belonging to Appellant 1 had snapped and the deceased had come in contact with it and had died was not by itself sufficient for awarding compensation. It also required to be examined whether the wire had snapped as a result of any negligence of the appellants and under which circumstances the deceased had come in contact with the wire. In view of the specific defences raised by the appellants in each of these cases they deserved an opportunity to prove that proper care and precautions were taken in maintaining the transmission lines and yet the wires had snapped because of circumstances beyond their control or unauthorised intervention of third parties or that the deceased had not died in the manner stated by the petitioners. These questions could not have been decided properly on the basis of affidavits only. It is the settled legal position that where disputed 8 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 questions of facts are involved a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is not a proper remedy. The High Court has not and could not have held that the disputes in these cases were raised for the sake of raising them and that there was no substance therein. The High Court should have directed the writ petitioners to approach the civil court as it was done in OJC No. 5229 of 1995." (emphasis supplied) 9. The aforesaid judgment has been relied/ reiterated by the Supreme Court in S.P.S. Rathore v. State of Haryana and others, (2005) 10 SCC 1 wherein it observed as follows: "16. In Chairman, Grid Corpn. of Orissa Ltd. (Gridco) v. Sukamani Das [(1999) 7 SCC 298] the question which arose for consideration was, can the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution award compensation for death caused due to electrocution on account of negligence, when the liability was emphatically denied on the ground that the death had not occurred as a result of negligence, but because of an act of God or of acts of some other persons. The Court held that it is the settled legal position that where disputed questions of facts are involved, a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is not a proper remedy. Therefore, questions as to whether death occurred due to negligence or due to act of God or of some third person could not be decided properly on the basis of affidavits only, but should be decided by the civil court after appreciating the evidence adduced by the parties. In T.N. Electricity Board v. Sumathi 9 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 [(2000) 4 SCC 543] it was held that when a disputed question of fact arises and there is clear denial of any tortious liability, remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution may not be proper. The Court carved out exception to this general rule by observing that, it should not be understood that in every case of tortious liability, recourse must be had to a suit. When there is negligence on the face of it and infringement of Article 21 is there, it cannot be said that there will be any bar to proceed under Article 226 of the Constitution." (emphasis supplied) 10. Similarly, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Shubhas Jain v. Rajeshwari Shivam, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 562 has held as under: "26. It is well settled that the High Court exercising its extraordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, does not adjudicate hotly disputed questions of facts. It is not for the High Court to make a comparative assessment of conflicting technical reports and decide which one is acceptable." 11. Subsequently, in Union of India Vs. Puna Hinda, (2021) 10 SCC 690, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has observed: "24. Therefore, the dispute could not be raised by way of a writ petition on the disputed questions of fact. Though, the jurisdiction of the High Court is wide but in respect of pure contractual matters in the field of private law, having no statutory flavour, are better adjudicated upon by the forum agreed to by the parties. The dispute as to whether the 10 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 amount is payable or not and/or how much amount is payable are disputed questions of facts. There is no admission on the part of the appellants to infer that the amount stands crystallised. Therefore, in the absence of any acceptance of joint survey report by the competent authority, no right would accrue to the writ petitioner only because measurements cannot be undertaken after passage of time. Maybe, the resurvey cannot take place but the measurement books of the work executed from time to time would form a reasonable basis for assessing the amount due and payable to the writ petitioner, but such process could be undertaken only by the agreed forum i.e. arbitration and not by the writ court as it does not have the expertise in respect of measurements or construction of roads." 12. Recently, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of M.P. Power Management Co. Ltd. v. Sky Power Southeast Solar India (P) Ltd., (2023) 2 SCC 703, while dealing with the issue of exercise of writ jurisdiction by a Court in matters arising out of a contract, has stated: "82.7. The existence of an alternate remedy, is, undoubtedly, a matter to be borne in mind in declining relief in a writ petition in a contractual matter. Again, the question as to whether the writ petitioner must be told off the gates, would depend upon the nature of the claim and relief sought by the petitioner, the questions, which would have to be decided, and, most importantly, whether there are disputed questions of fact, resolution of which is 11 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 necessary, as an indispensable prelude to the grant of the relief sought. Undoubtedly, while there is no prohibition, in the writ court even deciding disputed questions of fact, particularly when the dispute surrounds demystifying of documents only, the Court may relegate the party to the remedy by way of a civil suit." (emphasis supplied) 13. A reading of the aforesaid judgments makes it clear that it is well settled proposition of law that when there are disputed question of facts involved in a case, the High Court should not exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. It has been held that the remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution of India may not be proper. 14. From perusal of the pleadings, it appears that the petitioner is seeking a direction towards the respondent authorities to release the pending dues for the work executed by the petitioner and to issue work completion certificate; is contingent upon the resolution of the disputed question of facts raised, and these questions cannot be adjudicated under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. In view of the aforesaid, it would not be appropriate for this Court to entertain the instant writ petition as there are disputed questions of fact involved. 15. Considering the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties, further considering the disputed questions of facts involved in this writ petition, the relief sought by the petitioner 12 WPC No. 4041 of 2025 and in view of law laid down by the Supreme Court in the above- stated judgments (supra), we do not find any good ground to entertain this writ petition. 16. Accordingly, the writ petition being devoid of merit is liable to be and is hereby dismissed. However, liberty is reserved in favour of the petitioner to take recourse to other alternate remedies available to him under the law. No cost(s). Sd/- Sd/- (Bibhu Datta Guru) (Ramesh Sinha) Judge Chief Justice S.Bhilwar/ Jyoti