Chattisgarh High Court
M/S Chanakya Transport P Ltd vs South Eastern Coalfields Ltd on 7 April, 2026
Author: Ramesh Sinha
Bench: Ramesh Sinha
1
2026:CGHC:15760-DB
NAFR
Digitally
HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR
signed by
BABLU
BABLU RAJENDRA
RAJENDRA BHANARKAR
BHANARKAR Date:
2026.04.08
10:13:12
+0530
WPC No. 360 of 2016
M/s Chanakya Transport (P) Ltd. Through Wg. Cdr. Subhash Sindhwani
(Retd) S/o Late Shri R.D. Sindhwani, Aged About 65 Years, R/o
Khamardih, Kachna Road, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh
... Petitioner
versus
1 - South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. Through The Chairman-Cum-
Managing Director, Seepat Road, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh
2 - Chief General Manager, S E C L, Hasdeo Area, Post South
Jhagrakhand Colliery, District Koriya, Chhattisgarh
... Respondents
For Petitioner(s) : Mr.Amrito Das, Advocate For Respondent(s) : Mr.Vaibhav Shukla, Advocate Hon'ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Hon'ble Shri Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, Judge Order on Board Per Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice 7.4.2026
1. Heard Mr. Amrito Das, learned counsel for the petitioner as well as Mr.Vaibhav Shukla, learned counsel appearing for the respondents.
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2. By way of this writ petition, the petitioner has prayed for following reliefs:-
"10.1 That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue an appropriate writ quashing and setting aside the order dated 23.01.2014 read along with the corrigendum dated 25.01.2014 (ΑNNEXURE P/1).
10.2 That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue an appropriate writ directing the respondent authorities to release the entire payments with held by them and due to the petitioner.
10.3 That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue an appropriate writ directing the respondent authorities to pay interest @ 12% per annum to the petitioner towards the different payments from the date it fell due to be paid and till the date of actual payment.
10.4 Any other relief which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper, in the interest of justice.".
3. Facts of the case are that the Petitioner is an ex-servicemen company promoted and owned by retired defence personnel. It was sponsored by the Ministry of Defence, Government of India, through the Directorate General of Resettlement, to facilitate resettlement of retired personnel and to provide uninterrupted, reliable, and strike-free coal transportation services to SECL. The Petitioner was engaged under an agreement for coal transportation and loading in SECL Hasdeo Area from 03.02.1996 to 02.02.2005. The Petitioner was solely responsible for payment of wages to its employees, and SECL 3 had no role in the jural relationship between the Petitioner and its employees. The respondent SECL withheld payments due to the pendency of Writ Petition No.19/2006. The respondent SECL later agreed to release the principal amount upon disposal of the petition, while reserving its decision on interest. Accordingly, this Court disposed of the petition directing the respondent SECL to decide the issue of interest within two months.
4. The respondent SECL has admitted its liability to pay the principal amount, which was withheld only due to the pending labour dispute, as reflected in its communications. The respondent SECL has failed to release amounts of Rs. 2,93,599/-, Rs. 4,26,080/-, and Rs. 50,00,000/-. The first two amounts were deducted from bills and are still retained, while the bill for Rs. 50,00,000/- has not been processed despite repeated requests. Due to SECL's failure to decide the issue of interest within the stipulated time, the Petitioner filed Contempt Petition No. 535/2013. After issuance of notices, the Respondents hastily passed the impugned order denying interest, while remaining silent on payment of the admitted principal amount. The respondent SECL has failed to explain the non-release of Rs. 84,65,539/-, including Rs. 2,93,599/- and Rs. 4,26,080/-, which continue to be unjustifiably withheld.
5. The principal amounts claimed have never been disputed by 4 the respondent SECL. Despite this, the respondent SECL continues to withhold payment without justification. The bill for Rs.50,00,000/- has already been submitted but remains unattended. Though the respondent SECL proposed release of payment against a bank guarantee, it failed to specify the amount or duration despite repeated requests, rendering the proposal vague. The reliance on Clause 32(1) is misplaced. The clause permits SECL to assess short payment of wages, deduct such amount, and pay it to workers, but does not authorize indefinite withholding of funds.
6. The respondent SECL neither assessed nor paid any alleged shortfall to workers. On the contrary, it supervised and certified wage payments during the contract period. The subsequent withholding of amounts is arbitrary and beyond contractual authority. The respondent SECL retained the Petitioner's funds for over 11 years and derived benefit therefrom. The Petitioner is therefore entitled to payment of interest. Hence, this petition.
7. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the respondent SECL has illegally withheld the principal amount due to the Petitioner. Clause 32(f) does not empower SECL to deduct or withhold any payment after a lapse of 11 years on the basis of subsequent litigation by the union. The said clause only permits SECL to supervise, assess, and deduct any shortfall in wages at the time of payment and to disburse the same to the workers. 5 He further submits that the respondent SECL retained the said amount for over 11 years, utilized it for its own business purposes, and derived financial benefit therefrom. While the amount may be insignificant for a large corporation like SECL, it had a severe financial impact on the Petitioner, a small enterprise, leading to financial distress, including impoundment of its vehicles by banks. It is submitted that any settlement between the Petitioner and its workers is wholly independent of the respondent SECL. The contention of the respondent SECL that no claim survives due to such settlement is untenable, baseless, and unsupported by law. He also submits that that the SECL's offer to release the withheld amount cannot justify partial payment while arbitrarily retaining the balance. The respondent SECL has neither denied nor disputed the outstanding amounts. It has also misled this Court and the Petitioner by failing to disclose that part of the principal amount continues to be withheld, along with the reasons thereof. It is submitted that the order passed in Writ Petition No. 19/2006 necessarily implies that the SECL was required to release the entire withheld principal amount, as the question of payment of interest could arise only upon such release. It is also submitted that the respondent SECL had earlier acknowledged and accepted its liability to pay the specific outstanding principal amounts. The present management cannot resile from or revisit such admitted liability and remains bound to honour the same. 6 He contended that the impugned order has been passed in undue haste, merely to avoid consequences in the contempt proceedings, without proper application of mind and on illegal and arbitrary grounds, thereby causing serious prejudice to the Petitioner. As such, the writ petition deserves to be allowed.
8. On the other hand, learned counsel appearing for the respondents opposes the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner and submits that the writ petition as framed and filed is not maintainable as the disputed question of facts cannot be adjudicated in writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
9. We have learned counsel for the parties, perused the impugned order and other documents appended with writ appeal.
10. It is settled law that the High Court should not exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India when it raises disputed question of facts.
11. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Chairman, Grid Corpornation of Orissa Ltd. (GRIDCO) and others v. Sukamani Das (Smt.) and another, (1999) 7 SCC 298 was dealing with the question of whether the High Court had made an error in entertaining a writ petition filed seeking compensation for the death of a person due to electrocution, which had allegedly been caused due to the negligence of the authorities. The Supreme Court in the said case observed as 7 under:
"6. In our opinion, the High Court committed an error in entertaining the writ petitions even though they were not fit cases for exercising power under Article 226 of the Constitution. The High Court went wrong in proceeding on the basis that as the deaths had taken place because of electrocution as a result of the deceased coming into contact with snapped live wires of the electric transmission lines of the appellants, that "admittedly/prima facie amounted to negligence on the part of the appellants". The High Court failed to appreciate that all these cases were actions in tort and negligence was required to be established firstly by the claimants. The mere fact that the wire of the electric transmission line belonging to Appellant 1 had snapped and the deceased had come in contact with it and had died was not by itself sufficient for awarding compensation. It also required to be examined whether the wire had snapped as a result of any negligence of the appellants and under which circumstances the deceased had come in contact with the wire. In view of the specific defences raised by the appellants in each of these cases they deserved an opportunity to prove that proper care and precautions were taken in maintaining the transmission lines and yet the wires had snapped because of circumstances beyond their control or unauthorised intervention of third parties or that the deceased had not died in the manner stated by the petitioners. These questions could not have been decided properly on the basis of affidavits only. It is 8 the settled legal position that where disputed questions of facts are involved a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is not a proper remedy. The High Court has not and could not have held that the disputes in these cases were raised for the sake of raising them and that there was no substance therein. The High Court should have directed the writ petitioners to approach the civil court as it was done in OJC No. 5229 of 1995."
(emphasis supplied)
12. The aforesaid judgment has been relied/ reiterated by the Supreme Court in S.P.S. Rathore v. State of Haryana and others, (2005) 10 SCC 1 wherein it observed as follows:
"16. In Chairman, Grid Corpn. of Orissa Ltd. (Gridco) v. Sukamani Das [(1999) 7 SCC 298] the question which arose for consideration was, can the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution award compensation for death caused due to electrocution on account of negligence, when the liability was emphatically denied on the ground that the death had not occurred as a result of negligence, but because of an act of God or of acts of some other persons. The Court held that it is the settled legal position that where disputed questions of facts are involved, a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is not a proper remedy. Therefore, questions as to whether death occurred due to negligence or due to act of God or of some third person could not be decided properly on the basis 9 of affidavits only, but should be decided by the civil court after appreciating the evidence adduced by the parties. In T.N. Electricity Board v. Sumathi [(2000) 4 SCC 543] it was held that when a disputed question of fact arises and there is clear denial of any tortious liability, remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution may not be proper. The Court carved out exception to this general rule by observing that, it should not be understood that in every case of tortious liability, recourse must be had to a suit. When there is negligence on the face of it and infringement of Article 21 is there, it cannot be said that there will be any bar to proceed under Article 226 of the Constitution."
(emphasis supplied)
13. Similarly, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Shubhas Jain v. Rajeshwari Shivam, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 562 has held as under:
"26. It is well settled that the High Court exercising its extraordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, does not adjudicate hotly disputed questions of facts. It is not for the High Court to make a comparative assessment of conflicting technical reports and decide which one is acceptable."
14. Subsequently, in Union of India Vs. Puna Hinda, (2021) 10 SCC 690, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has observed:
"24. Therefore, the dispute could not be raised by way of a writ petition on the disputed questions of fact. Though, the jurisdiction of the High Court is 10 wide but in respect of pure contractual matters in the field of private law, having no statutory flavour, are better adjudicated upon by the forum agreed to by the parties. The dispute as to whether the amount is payable or not and/or how much amount is payable are disputed questions of facts. There is no admission on the part of the appellants to infer that the amount stands crystallised. Therefore, in the absence of any acceptance of joint survey report by the competent authority, no right would accrue to the writ petitioner only because measurements cannot be undertaken after passage of time. Maybe, the resurvey cannot take place but the measurement books of the work executed from time to time would form a reasonable basis for assessing the amount due and payable to the writ petitioner, but such process could be undertaken only by the agreed forum i.e. arbitration and not by the writ court as it does not have the expertise in respect of measurements or construction of roads."
15. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of M.P. Power Management Co. Ltd. v. Sky Power Southeast Solar India (P) Ltd., (2023) 2 SCC 703, while dealing with the issue of exercise of writ jurisdiction by a Court in matters arising out of a contract, has stated:
"82.7. The existence of an alternate remedy, is, undoubtedly, a matter to be borne in mind in declining relief in a writ petition in a contractual matter. Again, the question as to whether the writ petitioner must be told off the gates, would depend 11 upon the nature of the claim and relief sought by the petitioner, the questions, which would have to be decided, and, most importantly, whether there are disputed questions of fact, resolution of which is necessary, as an indispensable prelude to the grant of the relief sought. Undoubtedly, while there is no prohibition, in the writ court even deciding disputed questions of fact, particularly when the dispute surrounds demystifying of documents only, the Court may relegate the party to the remedy by way of a civil suit."
(emphasis supplied)
16. A reading of the aforesaid judgments makes it clear that it is well settled proposition of law that when there are disputed question of facts involved in a case, the High Court should not exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. It has been held that the remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution of India may not be proper.
17. Upon perusal of the pleadings, it appears that the petitioner has prayed for a direction to the respondents to release the entire withheld payments due to the petitioner and also to pay interest at the rate of 12% per annum on various amounts from the date they fell due until the date of actual payment.
18. In the present case, the relief sought by the petitioner to release the entire withheld payments and for payment of interest at the rate of 12% per annum is contingent upon the resolution of disputed questions of fact, which cannot be adjudicated under 12 Article 226 of the Constitution of India. In view of the aforesaid, it would not be appropriate for this Court to entertain the present writ petition.
19. Considering the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties, further considering the disputed questions of law involved in this writ petition, the relief sought by the petitioner and in view of law laid down by the Supreme Court in the above-stated judgments (supra), we do not find any good ground to entertain this writ petition.
20. Accordingly, the writ petition being devoid of merit is liable to be and is hereby dismissed. However, liberty is reserved in favour of the petitioner to take recourse to other alternate remedies available to him under the law. No cost(s).
Sd/- Sd/-
(Ravindra Kumar Agrawal) (Ramesh Sinha)
Judge Chief Justice
Bablu