Nagpur – The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court has dismissed a petition filed by contractor Roshan Patil over non-payment related to a delayed rural drinking water supply project initiated by the Zilla Parishad. The petition, which challenged the delay in fund disbursal, was rejected on Tuesday after the court observed that the matter involved disputed questions of fact which require evidence and cross-examination—procedures that fall under the jurisdiction of a civil court, not a writ court acting under Article 226 of the Constitution.
The petition pertained to a drinking water scheme intended to benefit the residents of Gondkheri village in Kalmeshwar tehsil. The contract for the work was awarded via tender with a work order issued on December 20, 2017. The project was originally expected to be completed within 18 months by June 19, 2019. However, due to delays, a six-month extension was granted. As work remained incomplete, the department revealed that the remaining work was reassigned to another contractor to ease residents’ difficulties.
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15April 2025
The petitioner’s advocate argued that despite substantial progress on the project and as per Clause 10 of Chapter 8 of the NIT contract terms, monthly bills were to be submitted by the contractor and verified by the concerned engineer. These were supposed to be approved within 10 days of submission. However, this process was not followed, and timely payments were not made. The petitioner’s lawyer further noted that if the contractor failed to submit bills, it was the duty of the supervising engineer to prepare bills based on verified measurements, which would be binding on the contractor—but this too was not done. The petitioner argued that without timely payment, expecting the contractor to complete the work was unreasonable.
The petitioner also stated that after receiving payment for two running bills, they carried out additional work beyond the initial scope—including laying an additional 1,400 meters of rising main pipe (in addition to 5,842 meters), and increasing the number of tap connections from 460 and 310 to a total of 770. Similarly, the distribution lines were expanded from 8,445 meters by an additional 900 meters. This resulted in significant extra financial burden.
During a previous hearing, Advocate Prashant Satyanathan, representing the Zilla Parishad, submitted that the drinking water scheme in question had been discontinued since December 2023. This discontinuation, he stated, was the reason behind the difficulty in processing the remaining dues related to the work done under the scheme.
