The Supreme Court has given an important decision regarding the Delhi-Noida toll bridge, on Friday. The court said that the company cannot levy toll tax and it rejected the petition. The decision will benefit lakhs of people who commute daily on the flyway.
The court said, “Noida has encroached upon its rights by handing over its power to levy toll to the company.” Giving relief to those using DND, the court added that the decision of the Allahabad High Court is correct.
Delhi-Noida Direct Toll Ends
The court said that the contract was given to NTBCL without issuing a public tender. This was a completely arbitrary decision. The court also admitted that the agreement made between the Noida Authority and the toll company for collecting tolls was wrong. With this agreement, about Rs 100 crore was wrongly collected from the common people.
A public interest litigation was filed in 2012 by the Federation of Noida Resident Welfare Association. The High Court also asked to not burden the general public with tax when the total cost of the flyover was recovered.
After the High Court’s decision, toll collection on the DND flyover was stopped and the company took the same petition to the Supreme Court.
Senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Siddharth Bhatnagar appeared for the company. They said that the Noida Authority had seized the company’s property. The authority did it with the sole purpose of causing irreparable damage to its financial assets.
NTBCL mentioned that once the toll collection was stopped, the company was completely dependent on advertising revenue for the daily maintenance.
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