Delhi HC decrees Rs 41.78 lakh final bill with 9% interest from 1999 to DDA contractor in 26-year-old suit

Justice Jasmeet Singh held that the six-month limitation in Section 53B of the Delhi Development Act does not reach a pure contract claim, that DDA could not sit on a 20-page final bill by calling it an abstract, and that every delay-related claim fell to the undertaking the contractor himself gave in his extension application that he would not claim any extra amount.

A contractor who built 176 MIG houses for the Delhi Development Authority at Kondli Gharoli in the 1990s, and sued it in February 2000 for Rs 2,28,68,176, has won a decree for his final bill of Rs 41,77,809 with 9 per cent interest running from 10 March 1999, but nothing else. Justice Jasmeet Singh of the Delhi High Court, in a 139-page judgment delivered on 28 October 2026 in CS(OS) 457/2000, rejected DDA's plea that the suit was time-barred under Section 53B of the Delhi Development Act, 1957, refused to let DDA escape the bill by calling it an abstract, and then dismissed nine other heads of claim worth more than Rs 1.1 crore, most of them because Jai Singh had signed an undertaking in his extension-of-time application that he would not claim any extra amount for the delay, and because he led no evidence of actual loss.

An 18-month contract that took 50

DDA invited tenders for 1,174 MIG, 210 LIG and 623 EWS houses at Kondli Gharoli Phase II; the sub-head awarded to Jai Singh, trading as J.S. Constructions, was 176 MIG houses with internal development in Group IX. His tender was accepted by letter of 15 February 1992 and the agreement, numbered 47/EE/ED-492-93 and later renumbered under successive executive engineers, fixed an estimated cost of Rs 2,02,25,140 and a tendered cost of Rs 3,30,27,654, that is 63.30 per cent above the Delhi Schedule of Rates 1989. Work was to start on 25 December 1992 and finish in 18 months, by 24 June 1994. It was physically completed on 22 February 1997, about 32 months late. DDA issued a completion certificate under Clause 6, granted extension of time to 22 February 1997 without levying compensation under Clause 2, and paid escalation under Clause 10CC up to completion.

Jai Singh's case was that the delay was entirely DDA's. His hindrance record totalling 649 days went in with his extension application of 12 May 1997; the Executive Engineer recommended the extension without compensation on 15 May 1997 and the Superintending Engineer allowed it on 23 May 1997. He said he submitted a final bill for undisputed items on 20 August 1997, that it was misplaced, that a copy went in on 23 January 1999 and a corrected version on 10 March 1999, and that DDA never acknowledged it. The suit, with a principal of Rs 1,57,71,156 plus interest, followed a notice dated 28 August 1999. Issues were framed on 24 July 2007: whether the suit was barred by Section 53B, whether court fee was deficient, and whether the plaintiff was entitled to the amounts claimed. Jai Singh testified as PW1 and his son Gaurav Dagar as PW2; DDA examined Mr M.K. Gupta, an Assistant Engineer at the time of his affidavit and an Executive Engineer by the time of cross-examination. Mr Mandeep Singh Vinaik, with Mr S.K. Sagar, Ms Ragini Vinaik and Ms Hridyaa Singh, appeared for the plaintiff; Ms Shobhana Takiar, Standing Counsel, with Mr Shivam Takiar, Mr Prateek Dhir and Mr Kuljeet Singh, for DDA. Judgment was reserved on 8 July 2026.

Section 53B: a contract claim is not an act done under the Act

Ms Takiar argued that Section 53B(2) of the Act caps suits against DDA at six months from accrual of the cause of action, which here was 22 February 1997 when Clause 10CC compensation was released, or at the latest 22 August 1997 when the final bill was said to have been submitted; even counting from 23 January or 10 March 1999 and adding the two-month notice period, eight months had long expired when the suit was filed on 22 February 2000. Reminders and fresh demands could not restart the clock (MCD v. Gurbachan Singh, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 19; Shah Construction Co. Ltd. v. MCD, 1984 SCC OnLine Del 119; Satender Kumar v. MCD, 2010 SCC OnLine Del 424). Mr Vinaik replied that the notice of 28 August 1999 (Ex. PW1/89), whose receipt DDA admitted in an affidavit of 14 March 2011, disclosed the cause of action and the claim, that the suit was filed on 21 February 2000 within six months of it, and in any case that Section 53B, which mirrors Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, is a special limitation to be construed strictly and attracted only where DDA acted under a statutory obligation, so the ordinary three-year period applied (Durga Chand Kaushish v. Union of India, 1971 SCC OnLine Del 158; Deluxe Estates v. DDA, 2003 SCC OnLine Del 497; Fresh Assets Ltd. v. DDA, 2015 SCC OnLine Del 11245; Mayurdwaj Coop. Group Housing Society Ltd. v. DDA, 2010 SCC OnLine Del 4409).

The judge set out Section 53B and said the law was no longer open. A Coordinate Bench in DDA v. Dr Fresh Assets Ltd., 2026 SCC OnLine Del 2376, following the Division Bench in Lucky Star Estates (India) Pvt. Ltd. v. DDA, had held that a claim for money wrongfully retained does not fall within “any act done or purporting to have been done under this Act” and that DDA cannot use Section 53B(2) to defeat substantive contractual or restitutionary claims otherwise within the general limitation. The question of fact was therefore whether DDA's acts were done under the Act or its rules. The suit was premised on non-payment of a final bill, withholding of amounts, work beyond the completion date, loss of profit and Clause 10CC compensation, all flowing from the agreement; none of it was an action under the Act. MS Shoes East Ltd. v. DDA, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 9074, relied on by DDA, was distinguished because there the tender and allotment were expressly under the Delhi Development Authority (Disposal of Developed Nazul Land) Rules, 1981, and nothing of the kind was shown here. The three-year period under the Limitation Act applied and the suit filed on 21 February 2000 was within time. The court fee of Rs 2,25,555.20, computed and accepted by the Registry on refiling on 3 March 2000, was also held sufficient, DDA having produced nothing to the contrary.

Final bill or abstract: 20 pages of measurements settle it

The Rs 41,77,809 claim was made up of Rs 31,90,124 for undisputed work, Rs 6,04,825.75 for work done but not paid, and Rs 3,82,854 as the contractor's 63.3 per cent percentage on that second figure, so the judge rejected DDA's charge that the plaint figure of Rs 9,87,680 contradicted the bill. DDA's defence was that no bill dated 22 August 1997 was ever submitted, that what it received on 23 January and 10 March 1999 were abstracts and not bills, that defects and left-out items recorded in the completion certificate had to be completed by another agency at the plaintiff's risk and cost, awarded on 23 March 2000 for Rs 7.14 lakh, and that the bill could be finalised only after that work. In cross-examination on 11 September 2015 Jai Singh conceded, after looking at the record, that he had not submitted a final bill dated 22 August 1997, that his covering letter of 20 August 1997 had no bill attached, and that nothing earlier than 10 March 1999 was on the court file. The claim therefore had to be decided on the bill of 10 March 1999 (Ex. PW1/85), which DDA admitted receiving in paragraphs 9, 10 and 10(1) of its written statement.

The distinction between a final bill and an abstract, the judge held, was a baseless assertion with no evidence or argument to support it and no format for either document was shown. The enclosure to the 10 March 1999 letter ran to about 20 pages, was described by the plaintiff as the final bill, and set out particulars of every sub-head and expense. DDA had demonstrated no step taken on it. DW1's affidavit was a bald denial that did not even name the agency said to have done the rectification work. The completion certificate of 22 February 1997 itself certified that the work was physically complete and no defects were apparent, listing as outstanding items such as final coats of whitewash and paint, cleaning of manholes, fixing of fittings and fasteners, and repairs to plaster and flooring. DDA produced no proof that it actually paid Rs 7,14,003 to the outside agency, and it filed neither a counterclaim nor a plea of set-off. Settlement could have awaited the rectification work, but “cannot be left in the lurch indefinitely”. DDA's passing suggestion that the bill had already been paid through Clause 10CC releases in 1997 contradicted its own pleading that the bill was yet to be finalised. On the preponderance of probabilities, Claim 1 was decreed.

Twelve words in the extension form that sank the delay claims

Claim 3 sought Rs 48,98,553 as 20 per cent over the tendered rates for work done after 24 June 1994, to cover inflation and idling of centering and shuttering. On 20 June 1994 Jai Singh had written to the Executive Engineer listing seven causes of delay, including non-availability of the complete site, non-issue of structural and architectural drawings, delayed decisions, erratic payment of running bills and non-payment under Clause 10CC, and notifying that he would claim 20 per cent over his quoted rates for work after the stipulated date. The Executive Engineer, H.S. Dharamsattu, replied on 25 June 1994 that the extension case was under review and that he was not in a position to give any extra rate beyond 63.30 per cent, though Clause 10CC payments would be released once the extension was decided. The plaintiff read that as an admission; the judge read it as a refusal of an offer to alter the contract.

What followed was decisive. In his extension application of 12 May 1997 (Ex. P3), Jai Singh wrote and signed the words “I will not claim any extra amount due to above mentioned delay”. In cross-examination on 19 January 2015 he admitted writing them, volunteering that the form was one-sided and the extension would not have been granted otherwise. The judge treated the application as an offer accepted by DDA when it granted the extension, producing a concluded contract; the claim would breach that term. There was no document after 12 May 1997 recording any protest, so the plea of coercion failed for want of evidence. Claim 3 was rejected. Claim 4, Rs 25,27,000 for staff and machinery kept on site beyond the completion date, computed at Rs 41,500 a month for one graduate engineer, a diploma engineer, a head mistry, four supervisors, an accountant, two clerks and six chowkidars, plus hired shuttering and scaffolding, fell with it. Jai Singh admitted on 13 January 2016 that he had filed no document on the number of staff employed or the period for which machinery stayed on site. Citing Union of India v. Om Construction Co., 2019 SCC OnLine Del 9037, ECO Green Buildtech (P) Ltd. v. Vikartan Infrastructure (P) Ltd., 2026 SCC OnLine Del 7062, Kailash Nath Associates v. DDA, (2015) 4 SCC 136, and Fateh Chand v. Balkishan Dass, 1963 SCC OnLine SC 49, the judge held that an ipse dixit of calculations without foundational documents cannot be decreed, and that the claim was in any case contrary to the undertaking.

Loss of profit, Clause 10CC and the small items

Claim 5 was Rs 4,56,802, pleaded under the heading of loss of profit but, as clarified only in written arguments of 6 August 2025, in fact interest at 18 per cent for 16 months on a notional loss of profit of Rs 19,03,341, being 10 per cent of the Rs 1,90,33,415 of work left on the stipulated completion date. The judge found the claim poorly described and unexplained in the plaint and affidavit. Applying the four conditions in Unibros v. All India Radio, 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1366, the fourth, credible evidence of loss of profitability, was unmet: the plaintiff admitted his income tax returns showed no separate detail of any such loss, and nothing explained the 18 per cent rate or the 16-month period. Claim 6, a shortfall of Rs 26,68,300 under Clause 10CC on the ground that quarterly quantities were misstated and bills pushed into earlier quarters with lower indices, failed because the plaintiff furnished no calculation or breakdown while DDA produced the 13th to 16th running account bills (Ex. DW1/3 to DW1/6) evidencing the escalation paid. The judge also recorded that Clause 10CC, reproduced in full, is a price variation clause for material and labour and does not cover delay, overheads or lost opportunity.

Claim 2, for a Rs 3 lakh bank guarantee and Rs 40,000 incidental expenses, failed because orders of 3 August and 11 December 2001 had recorded that guarantee No. 39/94-95 of the State Bank of Indore had expired along with its invocation period, no order showed it was ever encashed, and no evidence of encashment or of charges paid to keep it alive was led. Claim 7, extra items said to be outside the agreement, was rejected head by head: Rs 20,980 for 15 mm instead of 12 mm base plaster over 4,196.36 square metres, because DDA denied the thicker plaster and the cement register required by Clause 3.1.5 was never produced; Rs 2,123 for centering and shuttering for the damp-proof course, Rs 26,000 for 325 cubic metres of Yamuna sand at Rs 80, and Rs 47,020 for 100 mm and 75 mm SCI collars, in each case because nothing beyond the averment showed the work fell outside the contract or what it cost. Claim 8, Rs 1,50,000 for overweight steel supplied by DDA, was rejected because the steel weighment register (Ex. PW1/88) yielded no computation, the plaintiff had accepted 30 running bills without protest, and without a quantity it was impossible to say whether the variation fell within the 2 per cent allowed by Clause 42(iii). Claim 9, Rs 1,26,876 deducted for deficiencies, met Clause 25B, which makes the Superintending Engineer's decision on reductions for sub-standard work final; though that finality is expressed for arbitration, the judge held it operated in the suit too because no evidence displaced it. Claim 10, Rs 3,29,693 withheld across running bills, was partly infructuous since the amounts under bills 4, 20 and 30 had been released, and otherwise failed because the balance was withheld for excess cement consumption and quality control, the plaintiff admitted accepting every bill without protest, and he addressed no written argument on it.

Order

The suit was partly decreed. Jai Singh is entitled to recover Rs 41,77,809 from the Delhi Development Authority towards Claim 1, the final bill, with interest at 9 per cent a year from 10 March 1999, the date of the corrected final bill, until actual payment. Issues 1 and 2 were decided in the plaintiff's favour, holding the suit within limitation and the court fee sufficient. All other claims were decided against the plaintiff. The parties were left to bear their own costs, pending applications were disposed of, and a decree was directed to be drawn in these terms.