No cap on amount, period of toll collection on e-way

Mumbai: There is no upper limit or cap on the amount of toll that can be collected from motorists on the Mumbai-Pune expressway, the Maharashtra government Wednesday told the Bombay high court.

A bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice M.S. Karnik was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Pravin Wategaonkar, seeking direction to concerned authorities to stop collecting toll from motorists using the expressway. Mr Wategaonkar claimed that the contractor-in-charge of IRB Infrastructure Developers had already recovered the cost of the project.

The state government and IRB Infrastructure Developers dismissed the claim made in the PIL, which was filed by four petitioners. “We have gone through all the records and there is no illegality in the toll collection. The contract does not impose a cap on the amount that can be collected as toll or the number of years for which such toll can be collected,” government lawyer Abhinandan Vagyani said.

The PIL claimed that the contractor had already recovered the cost of the project as per agreement details with the state authorities, and continuation of toll collection amounted to “wrongful gain”. Mr Wategaonkar told the bench that as on June 1 this year, IRB Infrastructure Developers had collected Rs 1,400 crore more than the anticipated amount through toll collection. IRB counsel Janak Dwarkadas told the bench that the petitioners were ill-informed and that the contractor was not making any illegal or wrongful gain. He said that the IRB had secured the contract for maintaining the expressway and had been collecting toll from motorists through a transparent and competitive bidding process.