A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujwal Bhuyan held that awarding the contract to private firm Noida Toll Bridge Company Limited (NTBCL) to collect toll from passengers traveling on the DND flyway was unjust, unfair and arbitrary.
Noida, Monday, December 2, 2024 The Delhi-Noida direct flyway was stuck in a traffic jam as security was beefed up in view of farmers’ protest march towards the national capital. PTI.
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) flyway will be toll-free as it dismissed a private firm’s plea challenging the Allahabad High Court’s 2016 order to stop collecting toll from passengers. This decision will benefit millions of people who commute on the flyway daily.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujwal Bhuyan held that awarding the contract to private firm Noida Toll Bridge Company Limited (NTBCL) to collect toll from passengers traveling on the DND flyway was unjust, unfair and arbitrary. “There is no reason to issue user or toll charges. We hold that the agreement (for toll collection) is illegal,” the bench said.
It pulled up the Noida authority for delegating toll collection to private firm NTBCL, which has no prior experience and said it resulted in unjust enrichment. The bench said that Noida had overstepped its authority by delegating the right to levy or levy to NTBCL, and it had fleeced the common man with hundreds of crores of rupees.
The High Court had in October 2016 ruled that no toll would be levied from now on by those using the 9.2-km-long, eight-lane Delhi-Noida direct flyway. The order was passed after the High Court allowed the Public Interest Litigation of the Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association. A PIL filed in 2012 challenged the “levying and collection of tolls in the name of user charges by the Noida Toll Bridge Company”.
In a more than 100-page judgement, the High Court held, “The user charges which are being levied/received by the concessionaire (Noida Toll Bridge Company), infrastructure leaning and financial services (promoter and developer of the project) and Noida are not supported by legal provisions.” authority.” It said that “the right to levy and collect consumer charges from passengers suffers from excessive delegation given to the concessionaire under the concession agreement and is contrary to the provisions of the UP Industrial Development Act”.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published by PTI)