Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Feb 11: High Court has rapped the Government for challenging the award passed under Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development (MSMED) Act without following the due procedure of law for bypassing the mandate of depositing 75 percent of the awarded amount and dismissed the same.
Chief Engineer, System and Operation Wing, Kashmir and the Executive Engineer TLMD-IV, JKPTCL Pampore through a writ petition were seeking for setting aside of an award passed by the Micro and Small Enterprises Facilitation Council (MSEFC), Jammu under Section 18 of MSMED Act, 2006.
The senior counsel K S Johal for the unit holder- M/s Gulati Metals & Alloys, at the very outset submitted that there is no scope for the petitioners to invoke and no maneuverability for this Court to grant indulgence for supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India in the present matter to enjoy any foothold to agitate and assail, by a non-statutory route, an award passed under the MSMED Act.
He argued that a petition under Section 227 of the Constitution of India was not maintainable in assailing an award under MSMED Act, 2006, and then it was unnecessary for the High Court to have entered upon the merits of the controversy which arose before the Facilitation Council.
Justice Rahul Bharti while dismissing the petition said that it is clear and categoric position of law which was supposed to have been known to the petitioners themselves also without taxing or hazarding even a reminder, the very act of institution of the present petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India on the part of the petitioners can be said to be an exhibit of the very time frozen mindset of acting mechanically and ritualistically in the matter of discharge of administrative duties for unshackling which the Union Parliament was led to go for the enactment of MSMED Act, 2006.
The court added that filing of instant petition was to instill and activate a due sense of an urgency and efficiency at the end of the Public and Government, Authorities, Departments, Officials to act with due dispatch and drive in the matter of timely releasing and clearing of due payments in favour of goods & service suppliers and providers to the Public/Government, Department/Establishment more particularly when the goods & service providers happen to be Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), for whom the timely inflow of money demands/dues is as important for keeping their business cycle in motion as is essential for a water stream to have the inflow of water so as to save the stream from going dry and extinct.
This court holds that the present petition so filed by the petitioners is nothing but a misconceived exercise may be intended to bypass the mandate of deposit of 75% in case the appellate side remedy under the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 would have been resorted to by the petitioners, but then this Court is nobody to advice or lend any prudence to the petitioners in the matter of figuring out appropriate legal course of action which ought to have been self attended by them, therefore, this Court dismisses the present petition”, read the judgment.
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