BENGALURU: Hearing a contempt of court petition on pending bills, the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday observed that, according to the government’s own records, two contractors have committed suicide, and asked the State Government how many more contractors should end their lives before the bills are cleared?
The division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit posed the question to the State Government while hearing the contempt petition filed by Nikshep Infra Projects for not complying with the order dated June 6, 2023, passed by a single judge to the State Government to consider petitioner’s representation for the release of Rs 16.4 crore by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
When the matter was taken up, the court orally told the government and the BBMP, “As per your own records, at least two contractors have committed suicide. How many contractors should commit suicide? Don’t drive them to the corner by delaying payment for the work done. They do your job and when there is no objection after the completion of work, how can the state stop the payment? If this is the way the state works, no contractor will come forward to do the work.”
The court said that they are unable to understand BBMP’s concept for payment of bills. “In any welfare state, this cannot be a concept when there is no dispute with regard to the fact that a public body floated tender for certain work, the successful bidder completes the work by following all the conditions of the work order and the public body also admits that the work is duly completed but still the successful bidder or the contractor is required to wait for the amount due and payable to him for an unreasonable time or has to run from pillar to post for his payment and ultimately, they approach the court,” the court said.
Such matters are considerable in number which consumes valuable time of the court and do not allow the court to take up some worthy or important matters where critical legal issues are involved or rights of the citizens are at stake.
This was after the counsel appearing for the officers of BBMP prayed for a short adjournment and submitted that the civic body is disbursing the amount due and payable for the work undertaken by various contractors as per seniority of the bills submitted.
The court also said, “We expect and hope that the public bodies or the State undertakings or corporation body of the State henceforth consider the concern expressed by this court and try to avoid such situation by issuing appropriate directions or framing guidelines for payment of bills.” Further hearing is adjourned to December 13.