SC halts recovery proceedings as Rajasthan govt fails to refund contractor India News

New Delhi: The Rajasthan government, which is stuck in an embarrassing recovery process over failure to refund money to contractors and has attached some movable properties, including furniture and vehicles, on Monday got relief from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court stayed proceedings against it.A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh agreed to hear the state’s plea after lawyer Kartikeya Asthana submitted that the Rajasthan High Court had wrongly refused to entertain the government’s petition citing delay. He argued that satisfactory reasons for the 259-day delay were presented to the High Court but were wrongly dismissed.The bench agreed to examine the issues raised by the state government and issue notice to the contractor and seek his responses.In the legal dispute between the government and a Kota-based contractor, a trial court in September 2023 ruled that the state had breached a road construction contract and directed that Rs 6.35 lakh be refunded to the company along with 6% annual interest. After the mandatory statute of limitations expired in November 2023, the state filed an appeal in the Rajasthan High Court in July 2024.The High Court refused to condone the delay and dismissed the appeal in August 2024 without examining the merits of the case. Challenging the high court order, lawyer Asthana told the apex court that the high court erred in dismissing the state’s justified application for condonation of delay. The application clearly explained that due to unforeseen reasons, including a change of state government and delays in the appointment of counsel process, the appeal could not be filed within the statutory period.“The High Court failed to appreciate the three main reasons for delay in condonation application: (1) change of counsel after change of state government, (2) appointment of relevant officials due to state assembly elections and subsequent assembly elections in 2024, and (3) implementation of model code of conduct during elections,” the state said in its petition.Since the court was informed that an attachment order had been issued against the government property by the executive court and the movable properties including furniture and vehicles had been seized and attached, the Supreme Court decided to pass an interim order staying the attachment proceedings.“The High Court erred in dismissing the application for condonation of delay and accordingly dismissed the petitioner’s appeal itself by passing a final order which was completely arbitrary, unreasonable and wrong. It erred seriously in holding that the application for condonation of delay or the additional affidavit contained shams. The order of the High Court was arbitrary and inapplicable and should be set aside,” the petition stated.