A Delhi courtroom on Friday deferred the attachment of the long-lasting Bikaner Home, granting the Rajasthan authorities and the Nokha Municipal Authority per week to deposit the ₹50.31 lakh arbitral award owed to a personal enterprise, Enviro Infra Engineers Pvt Ltd.
The order got here after the Rajasthan authorities contested the attachment saying Bikaner Home doesn’t belong to the municipal authority. The courtroom expressed displeasure over the delayed response from the state authorities. “Now you might have woken up out of your slumber? How do you justify the dearth of response? Regardless of repeated alternatives, you did not file the property,” District Choose (industrial courtroom) Vidya Prakash stated in the course of the listening to at Patiala Home Courts.
The courtroom clarified that the attachment of Bikaner Home, a heritage property situated close to India Gate in New Delhi, can be deferred provided that the municipal authority deposits the awarded quantity within the type of a set deposit receipt (FDR) by the deadline. It mounted January 7 as the following date of the listening to to watch compliance.
Bikaner Home is a historic property constructed in the course of the rule of Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner. As soon as the princely state’s headquarters in Delhi, it represents Rajasthan’s architectural and cultural heritage.
The dispute traces again to a 2020 arbitral award favouring Enviro Infra Engineers, which constructed a sewage therapy plant for Nokha city in Rajasthan. Regardless of the arbitral tribunal’s ruling, the cost remained pending, prompting the enterprise to method the Delhi courtroom for enforcement.
After repeated non-compliance with courtroom instructions to file an affidavit disclosing property, the courtroom issued an attachment order for Bikaner Home in September 2023. The Rajasthan authorities’s belated objections got here after the prohibitory order was issued on November 7, restraining any switch or sale of the property.
The Rajasthan authorities, represented by extra advocate common Shiv Mangal Sharma, argued that the municipal authority doesn’t personal Bikaner Home. “The property belongs to the state authorities, and the attachment order can not stand,” Sharma stated.
The courtroom expressed its displeasure with the Nokha municipal authority’s repeated defiance, noting that regardless of ample alternatives to reveal property or adjust to the award, the municipal physique did not act responsibly.
Warning that failure to conform might revive the attachment order, Choose Prakash emphasised that the deposit of the awarded quantity have to be accomplished inside the stipulated time.
This battle originated in 2011 when Nokha Municipal Company awarded a contract to Enviro Infra Engineers for designing and developing a sewage therapy plant. Whereas the challenge was accomplished by 2016, the ultimate cost was allegedly withheld, prompting the contractor to hunt arbitration.
In January 2020, the arbitral tribunal dominated in favour of the corporate, directing the municipal authority to pay ₹50.31 lakh. Persistent delays in compliance led the personal agency to hunt judicial enforcement.
In its September 18 order, the courtroom stated: “The judgement debtor [Municipal Corporation of Nokha] had did not adjust to the route for furnishing an affidavit of their property regardless of repeated alternatives… it’s a match case for issuance of warrants of attachment in opposition to the immovable property.”
The hooked up property (Bikaner Home) was recognized primarily based on info obtainable within the public area and from official Rajasthan authorities sources.
Advocates Sahil Garg and Abhinav Jain, representing the personal enterprise, submitted earlier than the courtroom that the Municipal Company of Nokha was not an autonomous physique however an entity of the Rajasthan authorities, which owns the Bikaner Home.
With no responses from the state authorities coming forth, a prohibitory order was subsequently issued on November 7, restraining the civic physique and the Rajasthan authorities from transferring or promoting the property. The courtroom directed the municipal authority to seem on November 29 for additional proceedings.
