The State Government is obligated to act fairly, justly, and reasonably even in contractual matters, and the writ petitions were maintainable to enforce contractual obligations.

T.N.K. Singh, J.

1. These writ petitions involve common questions of facts and law and, as such, these writ petitions were taken up jointly for hearing. A common judgment and order is passed for disposing of these writ petitions. While passing the common judgment and order, the facts and reliefs granted in the respective writ petitions would be mentioned in different parts of the common judgment and order.

2. By these writ petitions, the petitioners are praying for a direction to the respondents to pay/release the undisputed bills for the contract works admittedly completed by the writ petitioners for the Government of Manipur for the benefit of the public and also for quashing the letter of the Undersecretary (Finance), Government of Manipur being No. 9/20/2001-FR, Imphal, 30-11-2002 for informing all the Heads of Department, Govt. of Manipur that the Finance Department shall not entertain proposal for refund of security deposits.

3. The writ petitioners, except the writ petitioner No. 2, Smt. Takhellambam Ongbi Dhanishana Devi, w/o (Late) T. Tomba Singh of Singjamei Mayeng Leikai, in WP(C) No. 962/04 are contractors and late T. Tomba Singh was also a First Class Contractor and Smt. Dhanishana Devi is also the power of attorney holder of the said contractor. All the contractors had entered into agreements for execution of different contract works for the Government of Manipur. The agreements between the contractors and respondents were in the prescribed format for agreement between the contractors and Central Government/different departments of the Central Government prescribed in the CPWD Manual. In other words, the agreement between the contractors and Govt. of Manipur for execution of different works for different departments of the Government of Manipur were in the prescribed format for such agreement of the CPWD, as such, the terms and conditions of all the agreements between the said contractors and respondents i.e. Government of Manipur are similar except the names and types of the work and value of the contract works. These writ petitions concern with the payment of undisputed bills and refund of security deposits and as such, Clauses 7 and 29 (A) of the agreement would be relevant. Rule 273 of the (General Finance Rules) GFR speaks about the requirement of security deposits and it says that subject to any general or special instructions prescribed by Government in this behalf, a private person or a firm, contracting with Government to supply stores or to execute a work, shall, unless exempted by orders issued with the prior consent of the Finance Ministry, be required to furnish security for due fulfillment of the contract. A suitable provision regarding the security shall be incorporated in all the agreements. In fulfillment of the requirement of Rule 273 of the GFR there is a clause in all the agreements for the contract works. In all the agreements between the contractors and respondents there were requirement of depositing security deposits for the contract works. Clause 29 (A) of the agreement speaks about the security deposits deposited by the contractors for the contract works. Clause 29 (A) of the Agreement reads as follows :

"Clause 29 (A). Any of money due to he contractor (including the security deposits) returnable to him under contract may be withheld to retained by way of lieu by the Engineer-in-charge or the Govt. or any other contracting person or persons through Engineer-in-charge against any claim of the Engineer-in-charge or such other person or persons in respect of payment of, sum of money arising under any other contract made by the contractor with Engineer-in-charge or the Govt. such other person or persons. It is an agreed item of the contract that the sum of money so withheld or retained under this clause by the Engineer-in-charge or the Govt. will be kept withheld or retained as such by the Engineer-in-charge or the Govt. till his claim arising out of in the same contract or any other contr