IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.5676 of 2006 Shruti Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. represented by Mithilesh Kumar, S/o-Late Rameshwar Lal, At Ujjwal Bhawan opposite Bahadurpur Petrol Pump Near Kailash Apartment Main Road, Kankarbagh, Patna-20. ….. Petitioner. VERSUS 1. The State of Bihar. 2. The Inspector General (Prison) Government of Bihar, Patna. 3. The Jail Superintendent, Mandal Kara, Munger. 4. The Jail Superintendent, District-Sasaram. 5. The Jail Superintendent, District-Gopalganj. 6. The Jail Superintendent, District-Begusarai. 7. The Jail Superintendent, District-Jahanabad. …… Respondents. ----------- 03 18.04.2009 The mala fide in retaining payments by the State is writ large in this case. Petitioner had supplied drugs and medicines to various jails in various districts. These supplies were made way back in 2003. The supplies having been made and having been used by the State, when it came to making payment, as is usual in this State, problems start on different grounds at different stations. Payments were denied in some stations. Payments were denied on ground of non-availability of funds in some stations. Payments were denied because of non-allocation of funds in some stations. In the present district of Gopalganj, payments were not being made because of records of supply had suddenly gone a miss and because of which State was unable to trace out its own records payments were not made. During pendency of this writ petition authorities woke up and - 2 - realize their responsibility to discharge their liability. Probably, they realized that it was now futile to hold back payments of petitioner, for reasons this Court cannot discuss. Payments were made except so far as the district Gopalganj is concerned. Not only that in spite of the writ petition being pending for almost three years, there was no response to the learned counsel for the State from Gopalganj district. When this Court ultimately took up the matter on 27.03.2009, now good sense has prevailed and as per written instructions, as contained memo no. 818 dated 16.04.2009, sent by the Superintendent of Divisional Jail, Gopalganj to the Standing Counsel No. 7, it appears that the long lost registers have been found and on scrutiny thereof, it is now admitted that payment of Rs. 40,905/- and Rs. 47,177.10/- is due and payable to the petitioner. In the said letter, it is undertaken to pay the said amount on allotment being made at the earliest. From these facts, it is apparent that premium is put upon payment to be made. Registers go a miss only on fear of the Court they are recovered. If this is not mala fide, I fail to say what else is mala fide. However, in view of the assurances, as given by the Superintendent Divisional Jail, Gopalaganj, as noted above, I dispose of the writ petition with a direction to the said superintendent to ensure and take all necessary steps and to ensure that payment is made to the petitioner within a period of two months from today. In case, payments are not made then respondents would be liable to be made along with interest @ 6% per annum from the time it was due in 2003 up to the date when it is made and State would be at liberty to recover the said - 3 - interest from the persons who are responsible for delayed payment. With these observations and directions, the writ petition itself disposed of. Trivedi/ (Navaniti Prasad Singh, J.)