HC suspends order barring govt buses from using 4 toll plazas

Time of India

2 days ago

Chennai: A day after prohibiting TNSTC buses from passing through four toll plazas — Kallapur, Etturavattam, Salaipudhur, and Nanguneri toll plazas — connecting the southern districts of the state from July 10, in view of toll arrears amounting to 276 crore, the
Madras high court
has kept the order in abeyance until July 31.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh decided to suspend the order in view of a submission made by the additional advocate-general J Ravindran that the state's transport secretary is in talks with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) concessionaires and an amicable solution will be arrived at soon.
The issue pertains to the pleas moved by Madurai-Kanyakumari Tollway Private Limited, Kanyakumari-Etturavattam Tollway Private Limited, Salaipudhur-Madurai Tollway Private Limited, and Nanguneri-Kanyakumari Tollway Private Limited.
They alleged that four state transport corporations are liable to pay approximately Rs 276 crore, which includes the penalty and interest. Even excluding the penalty and interest, Rs 113 crore is payable to the petitioners by the corporations, they said.
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In arriving at this amount, the petitioners took into consideration the various payments that were made by the corporations to the tune of Rs 48.5 crore. This apart, there is another major issue involved in this case, which pertains to the violations of the Motor Vehicles Rules, 2000, which mandates FASTags in all vehicles.
On July 9, since the corporations could not come up with a viable solution to settle the dues, the court took the extreme step of stopping buses from using the national highways.