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Before the High Court, by referring to the numerous correspondence between the parties right from 05.11.1997 onwards, writ petitioner submitted that the summary suit raised several disputed questions which needed trial and at no point of time, the writ petitioner had accepted the claim made by the plaintiff. It was also pointed out that the writ petitioner had taken up the issue with its Architect and all the bills submitted by the plaintiff were returned to the Architect. Thus, the writ petitioner had not accepted the payments as claimed by the plaintiff. It was further submitted that the trial court failed to give proper reasonings and a cryptic order has been passed rejecting the application for leave to defend unconditionally.

The High Court noted that after issuing notice in the trial court, the defendant has not filed its written statement. In the application, the defendant has disputed the contents and in fact denied the claim made by the plaintiff. However, the plaintiff has set out its case to point out that the work as per the tender was completed some times in March, 1999, the final bills submitted by it were certified by the Architect of the defendant and certificate to that effect was issued on 19.04.1999. The Architect had forwarded the bills to the defendant for clearance and the final bill amount was Rs.

2,07,11,475/-, out of which, an amount of Rs.1,08,29,989/- was received. The correspondences brought on record show that the meeting was held between the parties and the issue regarding incomplete work, payments and final settlement were discussed by them in the meeting as is clear from the letter addressed by the writ Petitioner dated 20.11.1998 to its Architect Mr. Qutub Mandviwala. Reference was made to possible dates for final discussion and settlement of the dues. During this period, the contractor and the Architect should discuss and settle all the payments etc. after completing the jobs as agreed.

According to the High Court, the correspondence thereafter, between the writ petitioner and its Architect goes to show that there were some defective jobs which were to be completed. The final bills submitted by the plaintiff were certified on 19.04.1999 by the Architect of the defendant and thereafter, vide letter dated 27.04.1999, the defendant took up the issue with its Architect. All this correspondence goes to show that the claim made by the plaintiff is not totally denied and there may be some subtractions in terms of the interest or defective work but there is nothing on record to show that the Architect of the writ petitioner has finally worked out the figure, quantified the payment to be made to the plaintiff and in any case less than the amount certified by the said Architect on 19.04.1999.