The High Court of Karnataka has imposed a cost of ₹2 lakh on the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC) for ‘ill-treating’ a contractor by raising a ‘make believe dispute’ to delay the payment of amount due to him a year after it was certified that a building was satisfactorily renovated as per terms of the contract.
The court also directed that the KSTDC has to pay ₹34.85 lakh due to him along with 12% interest per annum. If the amount along with the interest is not paid within six weeks, then he is eligible for an additional 1% interest per month, the court said while leaving it open to the authorities to recover the cost from the erring officials, including the Managing Director of KSTDC.
Justice Krishna S. Dixit passed the order while allowing a petition filed by M. Chiranjeevi, a Class I Contractor from Bengaluru.
‘Come what may’ attitude
“Even in plain matters like payment of contractors’ bills, courts nowadays have been observing a kind of callousness and ‘come what may attitude’ on the part of some public functionaries, and their actions are manifestly arbitrary and absolutely unjust, to say the least,” the court said.
While declining to accept the contention of the KSTDC and the State government, the petitioner has to approach the civil court or invoke an arbitral tribunal as it involved disputed facts, the court said while observing that “the deserving litigants cannot be driven away from the portals of court by quoting some theories of constitutional jurisprudence or of administrative law.”
The court noted that the petitioner had handed over the renovated building to KSTDC on April 4, 2017, and submitted a bill for ₹34.85 lakh. The building was inaugurated in the presence of Ministers, MPs and MLAs on April 10, 2017 and was put to routine use.
The MD of KSTDC in July 2017 had acknowledged completion of works and its handing over. After the KSTDC’s authorised architect approved the work for payment of bills in November 2017, the MD in December 2017 wrote to the Director, Department of Tourism, to release the amount for paying the contractor.
The petitioner submitted a representation in February 2018 complaining about non-payment of the amount. Following this, the KSTDC MD issued him a notice in April 2018 pointing out four defects in works followed by another notice by assistant general manager in May 2018 identifying seven defects and with a warning of deducting 10% of the amount if defects are not addressed in 10 days.
Murky and shady
“Everything appears to be murky and shady calculated to trouble the citizen with no justification,” the court observed while stating that it is a fit case to impose exemplary cost for ill-treatment of scrupulous citizen who had done work for the State’s entity.
