IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.14404 of 2009 HINDUSTAN STEEL WORKS CONSTRUCTION LTD. (Government of India Undertaking), Land Development Bank Building (3rd Floor), Budh Marg, Patna – 800 001 through its Chief Project Manager Sri A A Quaiser, son of late Mansoor Alam. Versus 1. THE UNION OF INDIA through the Chairman, Railway Board, Rail Bhawan, New Delhi. 2. The Chairman, Railway Board, Rail Bhawan, New Delhi. 3. The General Manager, East Central Railway, Hajipur, District – Vaishali. 4. The Chief Administrative Officer (Construction)/North, East Central Railway, Mahendru Ghat, Patna, District – Patna. 5. The Chief Engineer (Construction)/N-1, East Central Railway, Mahendru Ghat, Patna, District – Patna. 6. The Deputy Chief Engineer (Construction)/1, East Central Railway, Darbhanga. ----------- For the petitioner : M/S. Y V Giri, Sr. Advocate, Raju Giri and J N Pushakar. For the respondents: M/S. N K Agrawal, Sr. Advocate & Kumar Uday Pratap. -------- 04. 27.01.2010 Heard learned senior counsel for the petitioner and learned senior counsel representing the respondent railway. The parties to the dispute can be roughly stated to be the limbs of the government; on one side is a public sector undertaking where majority of the share is held by the President of India and on the other end is Ministry of Railways. Certain work came to be assigned to the petitioner related to the construction of certain major bridges which are numbered as 81, 82, 84, 85 and 91, between Riga and Bargania Stations which arose out of gauge conversion in the region known as Jaynagar – Darbhanga – Narkatiaganj sections. Work was allotted to the petitioner on a negotiated offer basis 2 submitted by the petitioner on 1.11.2006. Other developments are not much of significance except for the fact that the railways claimed failure of completion of the work necessitating termination of contract and imposition of penalty. Huge amount of money has also been ordered to be withheld as a follow-up to the impugned order dated 25th August, 2009, contained in Annexure-8. Many a things have been pleaded and urged on behalf of the petitioner primarily alleging that the responsibility is being fixed upon the petitioner when there is failure on the part of the railways as well in matters of change in the initial nature of work assigned, the drawing and engineering work etc. etc. The whole effort made on behalf of the petitioner through the writ application is that no case is made out for rescinding the contract and for the embarkment on an exercise of a fresh tender on the basis of risk and cost factor. Looking at the nature of the dispute and the technicality involved the Court would not like to venture beyond a point on the issue, coupled with the fact that both the litigants are Government of India organizations, it will be in the interest of the parties to either come for a negotiated settlement on the issue or if they cannot sit across the table, utilize the service of an arbitrator by taking recourse to arbitration by agreeing to either a single arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators to decide the dispute and render their award on the material and evidence which may 3 come. It is also recorded that annexure – 8 dated 25th August, 2009 will not be enforced against the petitioner, pending resolution of the dispute by either mode indicated by this Court in the earlier part of the order. The writ application stands disposed of with liberty to the parties in this regard. The Court has intentionally not gone into the details of the dispute lest in any manner be a reflection on the merit of the claim of either sides. rkp ( Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J )