“Mere filing of curative petition is no ground to stay proceeding of execution petition”: Orissa High Court dismisses plea

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The High Court of Orissa on Thursday while confirming the judgment of an Executing Court held that ‘merely filing of the curative petition is not a ground to stay the further proceeding of the execution petition’.

The court was dealing with a dispute between parties, where the petitioner State had challenged the award and, thereafter, filed an appeal in the Apex Court and when the civil appeal went against it, the petitioner State preferred review of the same, which again went against them. Subsequently, the State filed a curative petition.

A single-judge bench of Justice Arindam Sinha did not find that the Executing Court had proceeded with any illegality in the exercise of its jurisdiction, or that there was any irregularity in the impugned order.

Additional Government Advocate, D. Mohanty, appearing on behalf of the petitioner State, submitted that the order dated April 12, 2022, passed by the Court of Senior Civil Judge Commercial Court, Bhubaneswar (Executing Court) was made in exercise of its jurisdiction illegally and with material irregularity.

Mohanty submitted that the said Court ought to have considered that his client had a right to exhaust civil remedy available by adjudication of the curative petition filed by it in the Supreme Court.

On contrary, the counsel for the respondent, Senior Advocate Gautam Mishra relied on the judgment of the Apex Court in Rahul S. Shah v. Jinendra Kumar Gandhi (2021) and submitted that in the aforesaid judgment, the Apex Court held that the execution proceeding should be concluded within ‘six weeks’.

Mishra referred to the order sheet annexed in the petition and pointed out that the order passed by the Executing Court was on July 15, 2021.

Consequently, Justice Sinha stated that the abovesaid and rejected the petitioners’ prayer of stay. Accordingly, the bench dismissed the writ petition.

Case Title: State of Odisha and Ors. v. Larsen and Toubro Ltd.