About eight years: that is how long a contractor waited before asking a writ court to help him recover time-barred dues, and a Division Bench of the Patna High Court has held that the wait was far too long.
Patna: The Patna High Court has dismissed a Letters Patent Appeal by a Rohtas contractor seeking balance payments for road, drain and ghat works done for the District Urban Development Agency in 2014-15, holding that a writ petition filed in 2023 was barred by delay and laches because the claim had become time-barred long before [Binod Kumar Mishra v. The State of Bihar and Others].
A Division Bench of Justice Mohit Kumar Shah and Justice Sourendra Pandey delivered the judgment on October 30, 2026 in LPA No. 627 of 2023, with Justice Mohit Kumar Shah writing for the Bench. The appeal challenged a Single Judge’s order of March 29, 2023 that had dismissed the writ petition as not maintainable because a remedy was available under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015.
Three years for a suit, eight before the writ
The Bench held that the appellant gave no convincing reason for filing the writ about eight years late when a suit for money must be filed within three years. Applying the Constitution Bench ruling in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Bhailal Bhai, it said the limitation period for a civil suit is ordinarily a reasonable measure of delay under Article 226.
“Thus, the Court may consider the delay to be unreasonable even if it is less than the period of limitation prescribed for a civil action for the remedy but where the delay is more than this period, it will always be proper for the Court to hold that it is unreasonable.”
Three works, part payments and letters
The appellant, Binod Kumar Mishra, was declared L-1 in an e-tender issued by DUDA, Rohtas, and was awarded three works in Ward No. 16 of Nagar Panchayat Vikramganj on November 14, 2014: a PCC road, a PCC road and drain, and a ghat at Kesath Rajwaha. Agreements were signed on December 27, 2014. He said he completed the works on time and received part payments in 2015 of Rs 3,80,000, Rs 38,000 and Rs 8,55,000 against larger claims, and wrote for the balance in 2017 and again in 2022.
He also pointed out that an FIR, Sasaram Nagar P.S. Case No. 1326 of 2015, was lodged against all contractors, and said the police had reported that the contractors had no complicity in the publication of fake tenders.
What each side argued
Relying on ABL International v. Export Credit Guarantee Corporation and Surya Constructions v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the appellant argued that a writ lies against the State for undisputed contractual dues.
Senior Advocate Lalit Kishore, for the respondents, said the admissible payment was made in 2015 and the writ was filed more than seven years later. He submitted that complaints had alleged the tenders were published and decided collusively, that an FIR was lodged against officials and contractors, that a ban was imposed on further payments under NIT Nos. 2 and 3 of 2014-15, and that departmental proceedings were started against engineers. He cited a 2019 Single Judge order in M/s Ankuj Construction that left a contractor to the arbitration tribunal under the Bihar Public Works Contract Arbitration Tribunal Act, 2008.
The onus on the appellant
The onus, the Court said, was on the appellant to explain why he did not come to court before the dues became time-barred. He had not.
“The power, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is conceived to serve the ends of law and not to transgress them.”
Holding that the Single Judge rightly declined to exercise writ jurisdiction and left the appellant to the ordinary remedy available in law, the Bench dismissed the appeal.
What the ruling means for contractors
Writ petitions for money owed under government contracts are maintainable in appropriate cases, but they are not a way around the Limitation Act. The ruling ties the reasonableness of delay under Article 226 to the three-year period for a recovery suit: a contractor who lets that period pass cannot revive the claim through a writ.
For contractors with unpaid bills from public bodies, the message is to act early, through a suit, arbitration or a writ, and not to rely on years of letters and representations to keep a claim alive.
Case Title: Binod Kumar Mishra v. The State of Bihar and Others
Case No.: Letters Patent Appeal No. 627 of 2023 in CWJC No. 2718 of 2023
Bench: Justice Mohit Kumar Shah and Justice Sourendra Pandey, Patna High Court
Date of Judgment: October 30, 2026
Appearances: Deo Prakash Singh, Advocate, for the appellant; Yogendra Prasad Sinha, AAG-7, with Rajeev Kumar Sinha, for the State; Lalit Kishore, Senior Advocate, with Rabindra Kumar Priyadarshi, Advocate, for BUIDCO