Point of Law: Petitioner after withdrawing a writ petition filed by him in the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India without the permission to institute a fresh petition in respect of the same cause of action in the High Court under that Article".

JUDGMENT :

J.B.PARDIWALA, J.

1. Since the issues raised in both the captioned writ applications are interrelated and the parties are also the same, those were taken up for hearing analogously and are being disposed of by this common judgement and order.

2. For the sake of convenience, the Special Civil Application No.8824 of 2021 is treated as the lead matter.

3. By this writ application under Article 226 of the constitution of India, the writ applicant has prayed for the following reliefs :

“(A) This Hon’ble Court may be pleased to issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus quashing and setting aside the order of debarment dated 22.02.2019 passed by the respondent no.1 as the said order is absolutely illegal, unlawful, contrary to the facts and evidence on record against the settled principles of law, equity and justice and in violation of the principles of natural justice;

(B) This Hon'ble Court may be further pleased to issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent authorities to deposit the disputed amount of Rs.6,23,27,000/- illegally recovered by the respondents and paid by the petitioner in good faith under protest in a fixed deposit with any Nationalized Bank so that if the petitioner ultimately succeeds in its litigations with the respondents, the interest of the petitioner would be secured;

(C) This Hon’ble Court may be further pleased to issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus quashing and setting aside the letter dated 29.08.2020 issued by the respondents to the petitioner alleging additional recovery of Rs.2,77,48,484/- as well as the Recovery Notice dated 19.10.2020;

(D) During the pendency and final disposal of this petition, this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to restrain the respondent authorities from, not considering any tender bids submitted by the petitioner, blacklisting the petitioner or taking any other actions against the petitioner based on the debarment order issued on 22.02.2019;

(E) During the pendency and final disposal of this petition, this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to grant stay against operation, implementation and execution of the letter dated 29.08.2020 issued by the respondents to the petitioner alleging additional recovery of Rs.2,77,48,484/- as well as the Recovery Notice dated 19.10.2020;

(F) This Hon’ble Court may be pleased to pass any other and further orders of grant of relief as may be deemed fit in the interest of justice.”

4. The facts giving rise to this writ application may be summarised as under :

5. The writ applicant is a class “AA” Government approved contractor and claims that it has undertaken many major projects of construction within the State of Gujarat and also at other States successfully. The respondent no.1, i.e. the Nigam, a State, within Article 12 of the Constitution of India, invited tenders for supplying, installing and testing of the underground pipeline system of sub-minor canal for irrigation through the ‘kundi’ in the chak area for the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP Command Area).

6. It is the case of the writ applicant that the Nigam issued work orders which were successfully executed and completed by the writ applicant. It is also the case of the writ applicant that upon inspection and verification of the work of contract, the completion certificate also came to be issued by the officers of the Nigam.

7. It is the case of the writ applicant that thereafter the accounts department of the Nigam crosschecked the quantity of the work done and the payments were accordingly released in favour of the writ applicant

8. It appears that the Nigam unearthed a fraud alleged to have been committed at the instance of many contractors, including the writ applicant herein.

9. It is the case of the Nigam that bogus bills were raised of the works sought to have been undertaken and the payment wa