The Gauhati High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed alleging serious irregularities in implementation of various Minor Irrigation schemes and Flow Irrigation schemes, sanctioned under Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP), more particularly, those that were implemented during the year 2012-2013, 2014- 2014 and 2014-2015, primarily with a prayer to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct an impartial investigation and to submit enquiry report before this Court and thereafter, pass further orders based on such report.
In order to substantiate the plea of malfeasance on the part of the public servants serving under the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) Administration connected with the implementation of the aforementioned AIBP schemes, the petitioner has pleaded certain facts and particulars in the petition.
It has also been stated that the petitioner had personally inspected a few sites and found that there were over-lapping with previous irrigation scheme in many sites. The particulars of sites such as
(1) Borjan Composite (overlapping scheme);
(2) Langparpan (overlapping scheme);
(3) Dosbai (overlapping scheme);
(4) Dongmepi Bey Gaon (new scheme);
(5) Langphanki (new scheme);
(6) Wallingdisha (new Scheme) &
(7) Youangdisa (overlapping scheme) have been furnished in the petition.
The basic allegations of the writ petitioner, reduced to their essence, are that new projects of Irrigation Schemes were shown to have been set up in sites which already had previously existing irrigation projects, thereby, causing overlapping projects leading to defrauding of the Exchequer; the projects were awarded to contractors in violation of the guidelines laid down for issuing public tenders and some of the projects have been allotted to the relatives of the then Chief Executive Member (CEM) of KAAC and his close associates; there is stark deviation between the Detail Project Report (DPR) and actual implementation of the projects; funds have been diverted illegally without actually implementing the projects.
With a view to highlight the aforesaid irregularities, the petitioner had submitted a complaint before the Chief Engineer, Irrigation Department, Chandmari, Guwahati, which was received on 11/06/2015. Thereafter, the petitioner had also lodged a complaint dated 01/07/2017 before the Superintendent of Police, Chief Minister’s Vigilance Cell, Guwahati. The grievance of the petitioner is that despite having furnished sufficient information of irregularities in implementing the Minor Irrigation Projects, no action has been taken in the matter by the authorities, as a result of which, he has been compelled to approach this Court by filing the PIL.
The respondent no. 9 i.e. the Additional Chief Engineer, Zone-IV, Karbi Anglong Division, has filed counter affidavit contesting the averments made in the petition. Apart from questioning the bona fide of the petitioner in instituting the PIL, it has also been urged that the same issues raised in this PIL, have already been examined by this Court in some earlier proceedings and thereafter, a conclusion was drawn by this Court that there were no irregularities in implementing the 386 Minor Irrigation Schemes including the schemes referred to in the present petition. As such, this PIL is hit by the principles of res judicata.
In order to substantiate the plea that the minor irrigation projects have been properly implemented, the respondents have also brought on record evidence in the form of photographs of various installed projects to show that the allegations made in the petition are wholly unfounded.
The respondent no. 9 has also filed an additional affidavit bringing on record various orders passed by the Court from time to time to submit that similar complaints, earlier made by other petitioners, have been duly enquired into by the Court and those allegations have been found to be baseless.
In the rejoinder affidavit filed by the petitioner, it has been stated that the High Power Technical Committee appointed by this Court had verified the allegations pertaining to implementation of schemes during the year 1996 to 2014 and not the 64 schemes implemented during the year 2014-15. Therefore, the petition is not hit by the principle of res-judicata. The petitioner has admitted that he had executed certain works in respect of which Work Completion Certificates had been issued. He has, however, denied the other allegations brought against him in the counter affidavit filed by the respondent no. 9, as noted herein above.
Since there is a pleaded impeachment of the petition questioning the maintainability of the same on the ground that the petition is barred by the principles of res judicata, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Vijay Bishnoi and Justice Suman Shyam proposed to deal with the said objection first in point of time.
The Court noted from the materials brought on record that an organization called Dristi Social Welfare Society, which has its office in the district of Karbi Anglong, had earlier instituted PIL in 2015 alleging serious irregularities in the matter of sanctioning and implementation of as many as 386 irrigation projects for Karbi Anglong District inter-alia contending that the KAAC authorities had resorted to corrupt practices and in the process, had siphoned out the entire fund allocated for the projects without properly implementing the same.
Further the Court noted that with a view to verify the allegations brought in the PIL of 2015, the Court had constituted a High Power Technical Committee. This Committee, after examining the records and on visiting the sites, had submitted its report on 21/06/2017. After going through the materials available on record and on taking note of the findings recorded in the report dated 21/06/2017 submitted by the High Power Technical Committee appointed by this Court, the PIL of 2015 was closed by the order dated 24/08/2017.
During the course of hearing, the counsel for the petitioner has fairly submitted that the projects covered under the present PIL were also part of the 386 projects which were the subject matter of PIL of 2015.
However, K.N. Choudhury , senior counsel for the petitioner, by relying on a decision of the Supreme Court rendered in the case of National Confederation of Officers Association of Central Public Sector Enterprises and others Vs. Union of India and others reported in (2022) 4 SCC 764 has submitted that the principles of res judicata would not be attracted in this case since PIL of 2015 was not decided on merit by addressing the substantive issues.
In so far as the plea raised by the petitioner on merit is concerned, as noted by the Court, the High Power Technical Committee, which was a fact finding committee appointed by the Court, had verified the relevant facts, visited the sites and found that the allegations were baseless. There is nothing on record for this Court to take a contrary view in the matter. Although, by referring to the enquiry report dated 21/06/2017 submitted by the High Power Committee, Mr. Choudhury has made an attempt to convince the Court that some of the findings and observations of the Committee calls for further scrutiny, such submission of Mr. Choudhury are based on questions of facts, which are seriously disputed and, therefore, cannot be gone into in a petition , held by the High Court.
“In so far as the complaints lodged by the petitioner before the Chief Minister’s Vigilance Cell and the alleged inaction of the authorities in respect thereof is concerned, remedy was available to the petitioner under the Code of Criminal Procedure. As such, grievance of the petitioner, if any, in respect thereof, could have been suitably redressed by taking recourse to the procedure prescribed under the law. The writ petitioner has, however, failed to avail such alternative legal remedy before approaching this Court by filing the present PIL”, the order reads.