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National Highways Authority of India v. M/s IRB Ahmedabad Vadodara Super Express Tollways Pvt. Ltd.

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 283Decided 24 Feb 2025
C.A. No.-003154-003154-2025 (arising out of SLP(C) No. 25334/2024)
Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna · Justice Sanjay Kumar

Background

The dispute arose out of a High Court judgment dated 18 October 2024 that had decided three separate issues in a commercial dispute between the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and a toll-road concessionaire, IRB Ahmedabad Vadodara Super Express Tollways. The first issue concerned whether Order XXXVIII Rule 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows courts to order security or attachment of a defendant's property before judgment, applied on the facts. The other two issues involved further directions and findings recorded by the High Court that both sides later indicated they no longer wished to press.

Decision Breakdown

On the first issue, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the High Court's decision but clarified that NHAI remains free to file a fresh application under Order XXXVIII Rule 5 if the underlying facts change, and that this ruling would not affect any separate execution proceedings NHAI had filed. On the second and third issues, since the senior advocates for both IRB Ahmedabad Vadodara and a related IRB entity told the Court they no longer relied on those findings, the Supreme Court ordered those specific paragraphs of the High Court's judgment to be treated as erased and set aside, but clarified this was not itself a ruling on the merits of the underlying dispute, which remains open for the appropriate forum to decide. The appeal was accordingly disposed of on these terms.

Lesson Learnt

Parties in ongoing commercial litigation can, by their own statements before the Supreme Court, get portions of a lower court's findings set aside without a full merits hearing, but such a course does not amount to the Supreme Court itself deciding who is right on the underlying dispute.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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