The plaintiff's unequivocal statement of having no dispute with the defendant was binding, and failure to plead essential contract terms led to the dismissal of the suit.

JUDGMENT :

1. This suit for recovery of Rs.4,91,99,187.71 paise, post completion of pleadings, is ripe for framing of issues. The counsel for the defendant however contends that the suit claim, on the basis of averments in the plaint and documents filed by the defendant and admitted by the plaintiff, is barred by time.

2. The counsels have been heard on the said aspect.

3. The plaintiff has instituted this suit, pleading that (i) the defendant, on 27th December, 2011 floated a tender inviting bids for execution of the work of “Construction of Permanent Building – Package-1: Academic Block (Institute of Tribal Science & Arts) for Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) at Amarkantak”; (ii) the plaintiff offered technical as well as price bid for the aforesaid works, and the plaintiff was awarded the execution of the said works vide Agreement dated 28th May, 2012; (iii) in terms of the Agreement, the work had to be executed by the plaintiff within the period of 15 months commencing from 8th April, 2012; however the contract envisaged and contained provisions and procedure for extension of time in case the work was not completed within the stipulated time framework; (iv) since the work was prolonged for no fault attributable to the plaintiff, the time for execution of the work was extended upto 31st May, 2015 and the work executed by the plaintiff accepted without levy of compensation under the contract; (v) in terms of the Agreement, the defendant had undertaken to liquidate the bills generated by the plaintiff in respect of the quantities every month, after verification; (vi) after execution of contract, the defendant “unilaterally opted to make variation in item 10.2, which had invariable increased the cost component of the plaintiff to accommodate the aforesaid variation in the specification of the said item, for which various formal and informal interactions were made by the functionaries of the plaintiff with the key functionaries of the defendant, however, finding no conducive and positive response from the defendant, the plaintiff was constrained to assert the aforesaid claim in writing displaying its financial constraints in execution of the aforesaid item with variation, as proposed by the defendant post execution of contract”; (vii) the plaintiff, vide its letter dated 15th April, 2013 explained justification for its claim for variation / extra execution of work and on which financial implications to the tune of Rs.7.90 crores were valued by the functionaries of the defendant and forwarded to the High Power Technical Committee of IGNTU, which was the principal employer / beneficiary of the work, to seek its concurrence for the said expenditure; (viii) however till final execution of the work and its acceptance to the satisfaction of the defendant, the defendant failed in taking a final decision on the aforesaid claim of the plaintiff; (ix) the plaintiff mobilized all its resources to site and had been making endeavours to achieve completion of work within stipulated time frame but owing to poor coordination and lack of proper planning at the end of the defendant, the work was inordinately delayed and completion was finally recorded on 31st May, 2015; (x) the notice inviting tender required the bidders to acquaint themselves with the site condition before offering the bid; during the said site inspection the plaintiff noticed that works earlier carried out on the site comprised of an “I” section that was partially bolted and welded; the plaintiff thus quoted rates for executing the said item in the manner being executed at site; the drawings furnished with the bid document also showed the execution of the said item as “I” Section; however after allocation of the work vide contract aforesaid, the defendant unilaterally altered the design specifications and directed the plaintiff to execute the same from “I” t