Summary
The Supreme Court ordered refund of the amount paid for a sand-excavation allotment where the authorities never delivered possession and no sand was excavated. Official reports established these facts, making refusal of refund arbitrary. The High Court should not have declined writ relief merely on the stated ground of factual disputes: disputed facts and contractual monetary claims do not create an absolute bar to Article 226 jurisdiction.
Issues
- Whether the High Court should have declined a writ claim for refund on the ground that it involved factual questions.
- Whether the State could retain the auction payment despite failure to deliver the sand block.
Held
- Restraint in entertaining contractual disputes or disputed facts under Article 226 is discretionary, not an absolute jurisdictional prohibition. Exceptional intervention is available where elaborate evidence is unnecessary and State action is arbitrary and unreasonable; here there were hardly any factual disputes. (¶¶ 5, 6)
- The panchnama and successive official reports established that possession was not given and no excavation occurred. Loss of the administrative file did not make refusal of refund reasonable; relegating the bidder to a civil suit was unjustified. (¶¶ 7, 8)
- Government and statutory authorities should act as model litigants and avoid unjust technical resistance to legitimate claims. Since failure to deliver possession was not attributable to the bidder, the entire deposit was refundable. (¶¶ 9, 10)
Result
Appeal allowed; High Court order set aside. Respondents directed to refund the entire amount received from the appellant with 6% annual interest from the first request for refund until realisation. No order as to costs.