BHUBANESWAR Vs. STATE OF ODISHA & ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Writ Petition has been filed with a prayer to direct the Opp. Parties to delete the conditions included in the guidelines annexed to the Office Order No. 5608 dated 03.04.2007 (Annexure -1) & to direct the Opp. Parties for making payment of differential cost of construction materials, labour & POL due to hike in price as per the Notification of the Government to different contractor/executing agencies. Mr. J.K. Mohapatra, Learned Counsel for the Petitioner submitted that the Petitioner is an All Orissa Contractor's Association, Bhubaneswar, represented through its President. In order to submit tender for execution of work a contractor has to make estimation for the said work on the basis of the specification measurement & quantity of material & labour required & also taking into consideration the prevailing cost of materials & wages of labourers etc. Though the estimates are prepared basing on the prevailing price of the materials & labour, practically when the works are being executed the rate of construction materials & wages of labourer increases. Apart from that several works take time beyond the initial period of contract & completed with the extended period granted by the authority because of various reasons which are beyond the control of the contractors. Because of such price hike after submission of tenders & on completion of the work contractors are sustaining loss. Sometimes because of price hike some contractors leave the work incomplete as a result of which the interest of public is affected. Taking the above situation into consideration, the Government took a decision for reimbursement of the differential cost of construction materials & notified the same to all the Departments executing the construction works vide Office Order No. 5608 dated 03.04.2007 with guidelines Copy of the said Notification has been annexed to the Writ Petition as Annexure -1.

(2.) LEARNED Counsel appearing for the Petitioner submitted that a suitable direction should be given to Opp. Parties to take steps for reimbursement of the differential amount between the price of the materials, labour, POL quoted in the tender & subsequently hiked during the course of execution of work without stipulating condition for payment of such differential price only during the original construction period.

(3.) ON rival contentions, the only question falls for consideration by this Court is as to whether there is any discrimination, unreasonableness in the matter of granting differential price to the contractor on account of price hike in Steel, Cement, Bitumen, labour & POL for which they sustained loss in course of execution of the work.