IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE TWENTY SIXTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE V.ESWARAIAH WRIT PETITION No.10186 of 2002 Between: N.Venugopal Naidu, S/o. Sundara Ramaiah, R/o. 4-8-9, Bank Street, Gandhinagar, Anankapalli, Visakhapatnam District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Executive Engineer, Irrigation Division, Visakhapatnam. 2 The Asst. Pay & Accounts Officer, Y.R.S, Visakhapatnam. 3 The Superintendent Engineer, Irrigaion (R&B), Visakhapatnam Circle, Visakhapatnam. .....RESPONDENTS Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court may be pleased to issue a Writ of Mandamus or other appropriate order or directions in the nature of Writ of Mandamus and direct the respondents to make the payments a sum of rupees Rs.39.00 Lakhs Petitioner's pending bills along with interest. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.S.SRIVENKATESH Counsel for the Respondents: GP FOR IRRIGATION & COMM AREA DEV. The Court made the following : THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V.ESWARAIAH Writ Petition No.10186 of 2002 ORDER: None appears for the petitioner. Heard the learned Government Pleader for Irrigation and Command Area Development. This writ petition is ﬁled seeking a Mandamus directing the respondents to pay an amount of Rs.39,00,000/- to the petitioner towards pending bills along with interest. The undisputed facts are that the petitioner was entrusted with two works, one for improvement of right ﬂood bank of Sarada River from km 7.15 to 7.50 near Anakapalli, vide agreement No.1/95- 96(K2); and the other for construction of Head sluice at Nagulapalli Channel Nagulapalli Groyne at km 6.8 , vide agreement No.107 SE/94-95. The final bill for the first work was prepared and the same was recorded in the M.Book No.189 B for Rs.13,990/-. Regarding the second work, third and ﬁnal bill was prepared for Rs.88,502/-, as recorded in M.B.219A. The said amounts in respect of both the works were not paid to the petitioner, as letter of credit has not been released by the Government. Petitioner also approached the Lokayukta, by way of ﬁling a complaint, but no action has been taken for payment of the said amount. There is no dispute with regard to payments, which are liable to be made to the petitioner. Mere non-release of letter of credit by the Government does not constitute any ground to deprive the right of the petitioner to get the admitted amounts. As there are no disputed questions of fact, and admittedly, ﬁnal bills are due and payable to the petitioner, the writ petition is disposed of directing the respondents to pay the amount payable to the petitioners within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. There shall be no order as to costs. _______________ (V.Eswaraiah, J) 26th August 2008 sh