High Court raps Haryana Government for adamancy, unfair conduct

Deprecating the State of Haryana and its functionaries for "adamancy and unfair conduct" resulting in unwarranted litigation, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has burdened Housing Board with Rs 1 lakh costs. The admonition came as Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj of the High Court ordered the release of Rs 3.5 lakh, along with interest, to a contractor after holding that the continued withholding of dues amounted to "oppression and undue harassment.”

Advertisement

Justice Bhardwaj’s Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that the petitioner-firm was ‘AA-class’ government contractor, builder and engineer and was allotted construction work in Gurugram. The Bench asserted the court found that the respondents’ conduct of withholding he dues was incomprehensible and deserved to be deprecated.

Time and again the officers concerned had directed the payment’s release. But the amount was not released even after recording a specific finding that deduction/withholding of the due payment to the petitioner was illegal and not called for. It was also found that a respondent- executive engineer with Haryana housing board had no authority to do so.

Justice Bhardwaj also found that a stand contrary to the record had been taken in an affidavit filed by the Principal Secretary, Department of Housing. It was intend to rake up an issue on which the “department had already taken a decision”

Justice Bhardwaj asserted: “The respondents despite having specifically noticed time and again that there was no order assessing the amount due and that the respondent-executive engineer was not authorized to make any adjustment in the absence of any specific direction/order in this regard or in the absence of any decision having been taken pertaining to the assessment of the amount due, they have still compelled the petitioner to approach the court again and again for enforcing his rights and, thus, unnecessarily burdening the dockets of this Court. It is a clear case of an administrative inaction which has led to an oppression and undue harassment, apart from an unwanted litigation, being forced upon the petitioner”.

Allowing the petition, the court directed the release of Rs 3.5 lakh, with interest at 6 per cent per annum from July 22, 2015. Justice Bhardwaj made it clear that further penalty of 9 per cent interest would be imposed if the amount was not disbursed within three months.