Allahabad HC Orders Release of Admitted Shortfall to Bahraich Caterers, Sends Disputed Claims to Civil Court
The Allahabad High Court's Lucknow Bench partly allowed five writ petitions by Bahraich-based caterers over unpaid BRC training dues, directing release of admitted shortfalls while rejecting disputed excess claims as requiring a full trial.
Five writ petitions filed by four Bahraich-based catering and supply firms against the State of Uttar Pradesh have been partly allowed by a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench. Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, delivering a common judgment on 25 August 2026, directed the State to pay admitted but unpaid shortfalls in two of the five petitions within two months, along with interest at 9% per annum from 15 January 2025. For the remaining three petitions, where releases already equalled or exceeded the amounts admitted by the department's own order, no further payment direction was issued. The prayer for the higher amounts claimed by the petitioners — and for quashing the Director's order of 15 January 2025 — was rejected, with the petitioners directed to approach a civil court for adjudication of those disputed sums.
The Dispute Before the High Court
The petitioners — M/s Jaiswal Foods (proprietor Sudheer Jaiswal), M/s Jaiswal Agencies (proprietor Rahul Jaiswal), M/s Shakuntala Devi Caterers and Stationers (proprietor Shakuntala Devi Jaiswal), and M/s Ganesh Caterers (proprietor Mahesh Kumar Jaiswal), all from Village Chilwarya, Bahraich — supplied food packets for Block Resource Centre (BRC) year-wise teacher training programmes conducted during 2020–21, 2021–22, and 2022–23. There were 15 Blocks in District Bahraich, each conducting 33 training programmes, totalling 495 programmes. The petitioners claimed to have catered 445 of these through supplies placed via the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal by various Block Education Officers.
After executing the GeM orders and submitting bills to the Block Education Officers, the firms found that payments could not be processed. The Public Financial Management System (PFMS) portal limit had not been issued, Print Payment Advice (PPA) generation failed on account of portal closure, and the Single Nodal Account had not been opened at the relevant time. As a result, the funds lapsed and payments were not made.
The petitioners made representations on multiple occasions between February 2023 and April 2024 before the District Basic Education Officer, Bahraich, the Block Education Officers, and the Director General of School Education. After the earlier writ petition (Writ-C No. 5335 of 2024) was disposed of on 12 June 2024 with a direction to file a fresh representation, the Director, Basic Education, Lucknow, passed the impugned order on 15 January 2025. That order assessed payable dues for M/s Jaiswal Foods (2021–22) at only Rs. 14,15,896/— against the petitioner's claimed figure of Rs. 35,02,521/— attributing the limited liability to PPA failure and portal closure, and directing the District Basic Education Officer, Bahraich, to seek allocation of those funds.
The threefold relief sought in each petition was: a direction to the State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, to sanction funds; a direction to the Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Bahraich, to pay admitted dues with interest at 18% per annum; and quashing of the Director's order to the extent it reduced the admitted dues.
The Three-Tier Arithmetic Problem
The Bench found that each petitioner's claim produced three distinct, inconsistent figures: the amount originally claimed, the amount admitted by the Director in the impugned order of 15 January 2025, and the amount the respondents stated had been released after a fresh Block-level verification exercise culminating in a communication dated 11 May 2026 from the District Basic Education Adhikari and Finance and Accounts Officer, Bahraich.
The contrast across the five petitions was striking. For the leading petition (Writ-C No. 2146/2026, M/s Jaiswal Foods, 2021–22), the petitioner claimed Rs. 35,02,521/—; the impugned order admitted Rs. 14,15,896/—; and the respondents stated Rs. 37,94,906/— had been released — exceeding even the claim. For Writ-C No. 2151/2026 (M/s Jaiswal Foods, 2022–23), the claim was Rs. 50,21,525/—; the impugned order admitted Rs. 15,08,251/—; but only Rs. 4,62,460/— was released, leaving a shortfall of Rs. 10,45,791/— even against the department's own admitted figure. For Writ-C No. 2153/2026 (M/s Jaiswal Agencies), the claim was Rs. 12,47,450/—; the impugned order admitted Rs. 3,83,500/—; but only Rs. 2,63,956/— was released, leaving a shortfall of Rs. 1,19,544/— against the department's own admission. For Writ-C No. 2158/2026 (M/s Shakuntala Devi Caterers), Rs. 9,55,659/— was released against an admitted figure of Rs. 9,01,553/—, leaving no shortfall. For Writ-C No. 2240/2026 (M/s Ganesh Caterers), Rs. 4,09,870/— was released, matching the admitted figure exactly.
The Bench observed that this internal inconsistency — spanning three distinct figures for each petitioner — was itself demonstrative of the fact that the quantum of dues was not a matter of simple arithmetic but a genuinely disputed question of fact.
The Legal Issue: When Can a Writ Court Adjudicate Monetary Claims?
The petitioners relied on the Supreme Court's decision in M/s Utkal Highways Engineer and Contractors v. Chief General Manager, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1400, for the proposition that High Courts are not precluded from entertaining money claims against the State in writ jurisdiction where non-payment of admitted dues is arbitrary, and that there is no absolute rule against deciding pure money claims under Article 226. On interest, reliance was placed on Dr. Poornima Advani v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2025) 7 SCC 269, and Secretary, Irrigation Department, Government of Orissa v. G.C. Roy, (1992) 1 SCC 508, along with the principle underlying Section 34 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
The respondents countered that block-level verification had been completed and payments released strictly on the basis of field verification reports. The official communication dated 11 May 2026 from the District Basic Education Adhikari declared the outstanding balance against the petitioners as “NIL (Shunya).” They also pointed to the petitioners' own shifting demands — representations in July 2025 claimed Rs. 1,24,44,909/—, while representations in March 2026 projected aggregate liability of Rs. 4,25,29,576/— across connected firms.
How the Bench Reasoned
The Division Bench separated two distinct categories of dispute. The first was the admitted shortfall: amounts which the Director's own impugned order had acknowledged as payable but which the fresh verification exercise had still not released. The second was the disputed excess: the difference between what the petitioners claimed and what the departmental authorities had ever admitted.
For the admitted shortfall, the Bench held that no adjudication of disputed facts was required. The figures of Rs. 10,45,791/— (Writ-C No. 2151/2026) and Rs. 1,19,544/— (Writ-C No. 2153/2026) were the respondents' own admissions, recorded in their own order, and remained unpaid. The Bench declined to accept the letter dated 11 May 2026 at face value, observing that it independently verified the respondents' figures against their prior admission before issuing mandamus for those sums.
For the disputed excess, the Bench applied the line of authority from State of U.P. v. Bridge & Roof Co. (India) Ltd., (1996) 6 SCC 22, Kerala State Electricity Board v. Kurien E. Kalathil, (2000) 6 SCC 293, and State of Bihar v. Jain Plastics and Chemicals Ltd., (2002) 1 SCC 216, holding that seriously disputed questions of fact concerning quantification of contractual or quasi-contractual dues are ordinarily not amenable to adjudication under Article 226 and must be resolved through a civil suit where evidence can be led. While the Bench acknowledged the exception recognised in ABL International Ltd. v. Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd., (2004) 3 SCC 553, it found that the present case fell squarely within the general rule rather than the exception: the figures projected by the petitioners had undergone repeated permutations across different stages, and the respondents had conducted a fresh block-level verification and asserted full discharge of verified liability.
The Bench distinguished the earlier order in Shraddha Printers Sons v. State of U.P. (Writ-C No. 5353 of 2024, Neutral Citation No. 2024:AHC-LKO:79549-DB, decided 22 November 2024), in which this Court had directed the State to act on the Director's requisition for funds within two months. That case involved admitted liability withheld purely for want of budgetary sanction. Here, after the earlier directions, a fresh verification exercise intervened and the respondents asserted discharge of verified dues. The ratio of Shraddha Printers could not be extended to a situation where quantum itself remained in serious dispute.
On the claim for interest at 18% per annum, the Bench held that the entitlement to interest is parasitic upon a firm determination of the principal amount. Since the principal itself remained disputed and the department claimed the verified amount had been paid, interest on the higher unverified and fluctuating sum could not be granted on the strength of the petitioner's own unilateral computation. The Bench did, however, award interest at 9% per annum on the admitted shortfalls from 15 January 2025 until actual payment.
The Bench also observed that the conduct of the respondent authorities had not been above board. The inconsistent figures — one arrived at in the impugned order, another produced through block-level verification during the pendency of the writ petitions — and the letter of 11 May 2026 asserting NIL liability despite demonstrable shortfalls in two matters, reflected unilateral and self-serving assertions that warranted independent judicial verification rather than acceptance at face value.
Outcome
The Division Bench disposed of all five writ petitions with the following directions:
In Writ-C No. 2151/2026 (M/s Jaiswal Foods, 2022–23) and Writ-C No. 2153/2026 (M/s Jaiswal Agencies), the respondents were directed to release the admitted and undisputed shortfall amounts of Rs. 10,45,791/— and Rs. 1,19,544/— respectively within two months, along with interest at 9% per annum from 15 January 2025 until actual payment.
In Writ-C No. 2146/2026 (M/s Jaiswal Foods, 2021–22), Writ-C No. 2158/2026 (M/s Shakuntala Devi Caterers and Stationers), and Writ-C No. 2240/2026 (M/s Ganesh Caterers), since the amounts released equalled or exceeded the amounts admitted in the impugned order, no further payment direction was issued. The respondents were left at liberty, if so advised, to proceed for recovery, adjustment, or set-off of any excess paid amount from the respective petitioners.
The prayer for quashing the impugned order dated 15 January 2025 and for mandamus directing payment of the higher amounts claimed by the petitioners was rejected as involving disputed questions of fact requiring trial. The petitioners were relegated to their remedy before a competent civil court, with liberty to lead evidence.
The Bench further directed that if the petitioners choose to institute a civil suit, the benefit of Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 would be available to them in accordance with law. No order as to costs was made.