1 CGHC010275102026 2026:CGHC:31877-DB NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR W.P(C) No.3866 of 2026 Umashankar Pandey S/o Shri Rajkishor Pandey (M/s JJB Enterprises) Aged About 53 Years R/o Village- Gyanpur, District- Bhojpur (Bihar) At Present R/o- Ward No.51, C/o Om Prakash Tiwari Sheed Veer Narayan Singh Nagar, Khursipar, Bhilai, District- Durg (CG) ... Petitioner versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Secretary Department Of Drinking Water And Sanitation Indrawati Bhawan Atal Nagar, Raipur, District- Raipur (CG) 2 - The Mission Director Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) Near Bhawan Civil Line Raipur, District- Raipur (CG) 3 - The Engineer-In Chief Public Health Engineering, Department Indrawati Bhavan, Atal Nagar, Raipur, District-Raipur (CG) 4 - The Collector/President DWMS Balodabazar District- Balodabazar- Bhatapara (Chhattisgarh) SISTLA NEELIMA VISHNU PRIYA Digitally signed by SISTLA NEELIMA VISHNU PRIYA Date: 2026.07.28 11:06:22 +0530 2 5 - The Executive Engineer Member Secretary District Water And Sanitation Mission, Public Health Engineering Department Division, Balodabazar, District-Balodabazar-Bhatapara, (CG) 6 - The Additional Mission Director Jal Jeevan Mission (PHE) Nir Bhawan, Raipur, District-Raipur (CG) 7 - The Executive Engineer Public Health Engineering Department Balodabazar, District- Balodabazar- Bhatapara (Chhattisgarh) 8 - The Assistant Engineer Public Health Engineering, Sub- Division, Bhatapara, District- Balodabazar-Bhatapara (Chhattisgarh) ... Respondents ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Petitioner : Mr. Vijay Shankar Mishra, Advocate. For Respondents/State : Mr. SS Baghel, G.A. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hon'ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Hon'ble Shri Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, Judge Order on Board 27.07.2026 1. Heard Mr. Vijay Shankar Mishra, learned Counsel for the Petitioner. Also heard Mr. SS Baghel, learned Government Advocate for the State/Respondents. 2. The present Writ Petition has been filed by the Petitioner under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India with the following reliefs:- 3 “i) That, this Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to call for the entire records of the case. ii) That, this Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue a suitable writ for directing the respondents to immediately given the recoverable balance amount of Rs.13,64,675/- (thirteen lakhs Sixty four thousand Six Hundred seventy five only) with interest, in pursuance of sanctions and approved the bill passed by respondent no. 6 and 7, in specific time with period of 30 days. iii) Cost of the petition may also be granted to the petitioner. iv) That, any other relief which the petitioner is entitled and this Hon’ble Court deems it fit may kindly, be granted to the petitioner.” 3. Brief facts of the case are that the Petitioner is a contractor and proprietor of M/s J.B.B. Enterprises. Respondent authorities issued a work order dated 31.05.2023 in favour of the Petitioner for execution of work relating to construction of a 60 KL capacity elevated water storage tank and providing Functional Household Tap Connections under the Single Village Tap Water Supply Scheme at Village Ganeshpur, Block Simga, District Baloda Bazar- Bhatapara (C.G.). It is the case of the Petitioner that he duly executed the work as per the work order and submitted the running bill for the work. It is further pleaded that Respondent authorities, after verification of the work executed by the Petitioner, processed the bill and an amount of Rs.13,64,675/- was sanctioned and approved for payment vide office note-sheet and certificate dated 12.08.2025. However, despite approval and sanction of the said amount, the payment has not been released to the Petitioner till date. It is submitted that the Petitioner thereafter submitted 4 representations dated 25.05.2026 and 09.07.2026 before the concerned authorities seeking release of the sanctioned amount, but no decision has been taken thereon. 4. Learned Counsel appearing for the Petitioner submits that the Petitioner has already completed the work assigned to him and the amount payable to him has been duly processed, sanctioned and approved by the competent authorities. However, despite the approval of the bill, the Respondents have failed to release the admitted amount of Rs.13,64,675/- to the Petitioner. It is submitted that due to non-payment of the sanctioned amount, the Petitioner is facing severe financial hardship and is unable to clear the liabilities incurred during execution of the work. He further submits that the Petitioner is not challenging any order passed by the Respondents, but is only seeking a direction for release of the amount which has already been sanctioned and approved by the competent authorities. It is submitted that the inaction on the part of the Respondents is arbitrary and unreasonable, therefore, an appropriate direction may kindly be issued to the Respondents for release of the aforesaid amount within a stipulated period. 5. On the other hand, learned State counsel opposes 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 5 adjudicated in Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 6. We have heard learned Counsel for the parties and perused the material available on record. 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: "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 6 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 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 [(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 7 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 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., 8 (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 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. 17. From perusal of the pleadings, it appears that the Petitioner has prayed for issuance of a direction to the Respondent authorities to release the recoverable balance amount of Rs.13,64,675/- (Rupees Thirteen Lakhs Sixty Four Thousand Six Hundred Seventy Five only) along with interest, contending that the said amount has already been sanctioned and approved by the competent authorities. The Petitioner has also prayed for issuance 9 of an appropriate direction to the Respondents to release the aforesaid amount within a stipulated period. 18. In the instant case, the relief sought by the Petitioner arises out of a contractual relationship between the parties. Although the Petitioner has placed reliance upon the work order, the running bill, the office note-sheet and the certificate to contend that the amount has already been sanctioned and approved, the question as to whether the Petitioner is entitled to the relief claimed in exercise of the extraordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India necessarily involves examination of issues arising out of the contractual relationship between the parties. Such issues involve disputed questions of fact and cannot appropriately be adjudicated in exercise of Writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 19. Considering the submissions advanced by learned Counsel for the parties, the nature of the relief sought by the Petitioner and the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the aforesaid judgments, this Court is of the considered opinion that the dispute raised by the Petitioner essentially pertains to enforcement of contractual rights involving disputed questions of fact, therefore, this Court is not inclined to entertain the present Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 10 20. 10 20. Accordingly, the Writ Petition, being devoid of merit, deserves to be and is hereby dismissed. However, liberty is reserved in favour of the Petitioner to avail such other remedy as may be available to him under law. No order as to costs. Sd/- Sd/- (Ravindra Kumar Agrawal) (Ramesh Sinha) Judge Chief Justice Priya