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Judgment
Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J
The Court : The affidavit-in-reply as well as the affidavit-in-opposition, both filed by the petitioners in the writ petition, respectively against the affidavit-in-opposition filed by the respondents in the writ petition and against the supplementary affidavit filed by the respondents and affirmed on March 12, 2019, be kept on record.
Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners argues that despite having paid half of the dues to the petitioners for the work in question, the rest of the dues were withheld from the petitioners, in violation of the in terms of the contract between the parties.
Learned counsel appearing for the respondents submits first that the present dispute arises from a statutory contract and as such no application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is maintainable. Secondly, it is argued that the writ petition pertains to a money claim for which the petitioners have to approach a Civil Court. The third argument made by the respondents is that most of the claims arise from bills pertaining to the years 2012 and 2013 and were time-barred even when the writ petition was filed and, as such, the quanta under those bills cannot now be claimed.
It appears from the rival contentions of the parties that, pursuant to a previous direction of this Court, the respondent no. 1 considered the demand for justice made by the petitioners and pointed out that the petitioners had not completed the work in question and there were certain deficiencies in service.
In reply, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners argues that such alleged deficiencies were not pointed out by the respondent no. 1 at the relevant juncture, contemporaneously with the execution of the work. It is argued that the claims cannot be time-barred since the payments made continued up to July 20, 2015 and the cause of action of the petitioners arose, if not from that date, from October, 2015, when the work was completed.
Since the contentions and counter allegations made by the parties require an adjudication of disputed questions of fact, a full-fledged trial on evidence is required to decide the same issues. Accordingly, W.P. No. 120 of 2018 is dismissed, with liberty to the petitioners to approach the appropriate Civil Court having jurisdiction with the disputes raised in the writ petition. It is made clear that the pendency of the writ petition and the same being entertained by this Court themselves are sufficient indicators that the petitioners bona fide proceeded before a wrong forum, which aspect may be considered by the Civil Court while adjudicating the suit, if any, filed by the petitioners in that regard.
There will be no order as to costs.