New Delhi, March 21 The Supreme Court on Monday held that high courts should not stay construction of infrastructure projects like construction of roads.
A bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V. Ramasubramanian said: "Since the construction of roads is an infrastructure project and keeping in view the intent of the legislature that infrastructure projects should not be stayed, the High Court would have been well advised to hold its hand to stay the construction of the infrastructure project."
"Such provision should be kept in view even by the writ court while exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India".
The bench added that a word of caution ought to be mentioned that any contract of public service should not be interfered with lightly and in any case, there should not be any interim order derailing the entire process of the services meant for larger public good.
"The grant of interim injunction by the learned Single Bench of the High Court has helped no one except a contractor who lost a contract bid and has only caused loss to the state with no corresponding gain to anyone," it said.
The top court judgment came on an appeal filed against the Jharkhand High Court division bench's January 6, 2022 order, whereby the appeal filed by the state against the order of the single bench allowing a petition was dismissed.
The dispute was in connection with a grant of tender by the Jharkhand Road Construction Department for reconstruction of the Nagaruntari-Dhurki-Ambakhoriya Road.
The bench noted: "If the court finds that there is total arbitrariness or that the tender has been granted in a malafide manner, still the court should refrain from interfering in the grant of tender but instead relegate the parties to seek damages for the wrongful exclusion rather than to injunct the execution of the contract."
"We also find that multiple layers of exercise of jurisdiction also delay the final adjudication challenging the grant of tender. Therefore, it would be open to the High Courts or the Chief Justice to entrust these petitions to a Division Bench of the High Court, which would avoid at least hearing by one of the forums."
The top court disposed of the appeal with a direction to the state government to allow the appellant, a private firm, to resume and complete the work by excluding the period spent in the stay of execution of the contract as it set aside the High Court's judgment, which had ordered a fresh tendering process for reconstruction of the road.
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