Supreme Court: Court should not grant an injunction in case of tender of infrastructure project; Instead, Relegate Party To Seek Damages

If the Court finds that there is total arbitrariness or that the tender has been granted in a malafide manner, still the Court should refrain from interfer- ing in the grant of tender but instead relegate the parties to seek damages for the wrongful exclusion rather than to injunct the execution of the contract. The injunction or interference in the tender leads to additional costs on the State and is also against public interest. Therefore, the State and its citizens suffer twice, firstly by paying escalation costs and secondly, by being deprived of the infrastructure for which the present-day Governments are expected to work.

26. A word of caution ought to be mentioned herein that any contract of public service should not be interfered with lightly and in any case, there should not be any interim order derailing the entire process of the services meant for larger public good. The grant of interim injunction by the learned Single Bench of the High Court has helped no-one except a contractor who lost a contract bid and has only caused loss to the State with no corresponding gain to anyone.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA 

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION 

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 1846 OF 2022 

 M/S. N.G. PROJECTS LIMITED VERSUS M/S. VINOD KUMAR JAIN & ORS.

Coram: HEMANT GUPTA; V. RAMASUBRAMANIAN, JJ.

HEMANT GUPTA, J.

Dated: MARCH 21, 2022

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Supreme Court: Civil court should refuse to grant an injunction if it would delay completion of infrastructure project

Further, Section 41(f) of the 1963 Act clearly mandates that

an injunction cannot be granted to prevent, on the ground of

nuisance, an act of which it is not reasonably clear that it will be

a nuisance. Similarly, the respondent No. 20 (State of

Maharashtra) is right in contending that the plaintiffs would have

equally efficacious relief by resorting to other mode of

proceedings. To wit, when the proposal regarding setting up of

the Project is being finalised and permissions are granted by the

competent authority under the concerned statutory dispensation,

at that time, the affected parties would be free to make

representation which can be considered by the competent

authority appropriately. Hence, the civil Court ought not to have

granted injunction simpliciter also because of the stipulation in

Section 41(h) of the 1963 Act, wherein it is made amply clear that

when equally efficacious relief can certainly be obtained by any

other usual mode of proceeding except in case of breach of trust,

an injunction cannot be granted. The scheme of Section 41 of

the 1963 Act predicates that the civil Court must refuse to grant

injunction in the situations referred to therein vide clauses (a) to

(j). The recent amendment to that provision by Act 18 of 2018

has inserted clause (ha), for making it explicitly clear that the

civil Court must refuse to grant injunction if it would impede or

delay the progress of completion of any infrastructure project,

such as the present one. Indeed, this amended provision does

not apply to the present case. However, the Court could not have

answered the matter in issue on the basis of assumptions and

conjectures, much less unsubstantiated claim of the plaintiffs.

REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 2412/2020

Ratnagiri Nagar Parishad  Vs Gangaram Narayan Ambekar

A.M. Khanwilkar, J.

Dated:May 6, 2020.

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