Infrastructure Projects, Special Courts and Expeditious Disposal

In one line

Three sections inserted in 2018 that treat infrastructure contracts as a special class: no injunction that would delay the project, designated courts to hear the disputes, and a twelve month deadline for every suit under the Act.

In the words a student can write in an exam: sections 20A, 20B and 20C were inserted in the Specific Relief Act 1963 by the Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018 with effect from 1 October 2018. Section 20A provides that no injunction shall be granted by a court in a suit under the Act involving a contract relating to an infrastructure project specified in the Schedule, where granting it would cause impediment or delay in the progress or completion of the project. Section 20B requires the State Government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court, to designate one or more Civil Courts as Special Courts to try such suits. Section 20C requires every suit under the Act to be disposed of within twelve months from service of summons, extendable by not more than six months for reasons recorded in writing.

Why infrastructure was singled out

The 2018 amendment had one theme: contracts should be performed. Sections 10, 11(1), 14 and 20 all push in that direction.

Infrastructure raised a distinct problem, and it is worth stating because it explains all three sections. A large project, a road, a port, a power plant, is built under a chain of contracts. When one of them is disputed, an injunction can stop the whole project. The loss then falls not only on the parties but on the public, and it grows every day the site stands idle. Meanwhile a suit takes years.

Parliament's answer had three parts, and they map onto the three sections:

• stop the project being halted, section 20A;
• give the disputes to identified courts, section 20B;
• put every suit under the Act on a clock, section 20C.

Note the reach of the third. Section 20C is not confined to infrastructure. It applies to a suit filed under the provisions of this Act, so every suit for specific performance, injunction, declaration, rectification or cancellation is within it.

Section 20A: no injunction that would delay the project

"(1) No injunction shall be granted by a court in a suit under this Act involving a contract relating to an infrastructure project specified in the Schedule, where granting injunction would cause impediment or delay in the progress or completion of such infrastructure project.

Explanation. For the purposes of this section, section 20B and clause (ha) of section 41, the expression 'infrastructure project' means the category of projects and infrastructure Sub-Sectors specified in the Schedule.

(2) The Central Government may, depending upon the requirement for development of infrastructure projects, and if it considers necessary or expedient to do so, by notification in the Official Gazette, amend the Schedule relating to any Category of projects or Infrastructure Sub-Sectors.

(3) Every notification issued under this Act by the Central Government shall be laid, as soon as may be after it is issued, before each House of Parliament, while it is in session, for a total period of thirty days."