HC questions ORERA for sending cases to civil courts for dues recovery

A two-judge bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice B R Sarangi and Justice M S Raman, has requested ORERA's response on reconsidering its approach to execution cases, especially after the authority claimed it faced difficulties in implementing its orders. The bench has scheduled further consideration of the matter for the upcoming week.

The High Court made these observations during a hearing on Friday in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking intervention against ORERA's practice of sending orders imposing penalties to civil courts for execution. The petitioner, Bimalendu Pradhan, a flat owner from Bhubaneswar, asserted that the recovery of penalties has been minimal.

The affidavit submitted by ORERA, as pointed out by the petitioner's counsel Mohit Agarwal, revealed the imposition of Rs 198.7 million in penalties across 153 cases, with only Rs 40 lakh realised. ORERA's counsel, Bibhu Prasad Tripathy, stated in the affidavit that efforts are being made to expedite the realisation process through correspondence with revenue authorities, empowered to recover these penalties.

Earlier, ORERA, in its affidavit, expressed its inability to execute orders and highlighted the absence of an established mechanism, similar to that of civil courts, for recovering dues or penalties. The authority argued that the civil court is well-equipped to enforce orders through its existing processes. Establishing parallel infrastructure within ORERA for order execution would be an unnecessary burden on the state exchequer. Consequently, ORERA opts to send its orders to civil courts for execution, specifically within the local jurisdiction where the project is located or where the subject of the order resides.