Authorities cannot deny payment for requisitioned buses merely because funds are unavailable.

The petitioner, President of the Bus Operator Union, District Bhind, supplied buses pursuant to requisitions made by the district authorities for transporting farmers to an Agriculture Fair held on 10–11 December 2016 and an Antyodaya Mela held on 1 January 2017.

The amounts payable were stated to be ₹2.30 lakhs for the Agriculture Fair and ₹3.66 lakhs for the Antyodaya Mela, aggregating to ₹5.96 lakhs.

Despite deployment of the buses, payment was not made. The petitioner submitted repeated representations between February 2019 and May 2022 seeking settlement of the claim.

Inter-departmental correspondence disclosed that ₹9.50 lakhs had been received, of which ₹7 lakhs was transferred to the concerned authority and ₹2.50 lakhs was spent under other heads; the authorities cited lack of available funds as the reason for non-payment.

The petitioner therefore invoked Article 226 of the Constitution seeking payment of ₹5.96 lakhs with interest.

Whether the respondents could refuse payment for buses requisitioned and deployed for government-organised events on the ground that funds were unavailable.

Whether the petitioner was entitled to receive the entire claimed amount despite the State’s contention that he was merely the President of the Bus Operator Union and that payment might be due to several individual bus operators.

The Court exercised its constitutional jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

It applied the principle that a public authority which requisitions and utilises private services cannot avoid its payment obligation merely because the sanctioned or received funds have subsequently become unavailable or have been diverted to other expenditure; financial insufficiency is an internal administrative matter and is not a defence against an admitted liability arising from services accepted by the State.

No specific statutory provision or judicial precedent was cited in the judgment.

The correspondence dated 3, 6 and 15 June 2022 showed that the respondents did not dispute either the deployment of the buses or the petitioner’s claim; their stated difficulty was only the non-availability of funds after expenditure under other heads.

The Court held that the authorities were required to secure funds before requisitioning and using the buses and could not subsequently deny payment on that basis.

Although the State argued that the petitioner, being Union President, might not personally be entitled to the entire amount, the petitioner stated that the Transport Department had assigned him responsibility for arranging the buses and receiving and disbursing the payment to the eligible operators.

On the record before it, the Court treated the claimed amounts as undisputed and directed payment to the petitioner.

The respondents were directed to pay the petitioner ₹2.30 lakhs for the Agriculture Fair and ₹3.66 lakhs for the Antyodaya Mela, totalling ₹5.96 lakhs, within one month from communication of the order.

If payment was not made within that period, the amount would carry interest at 9% per annum from the thirty-first day after communication of the order.

The petition was consequently disposed of.