Two days after Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar ordered the demolition of a wall erected on Dwarka Expressway, blocking access to National Highway 48, the Delhi High Court Friday restrained the Haryana government and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) from opening the road to traffic.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher also sought the response of the NHAI and Haryana government on a plea by the concessionaire for the expressway, Millennium City Expressways Private Limited (MCEPL), which urged that the authorities be directed not to open the stretch to traffic as it illegally bypasses the toll plaza. The court has listed the matter for further hearing on February 19.
Inspecting the expressway Wednesday, Khattar had said: “There are a lot of traffic jams here, because of which I think they have closed this NPR road. We will tell HSVP to remove this so the road is opened from here as well… This will bring relief to people living along the Expressway.” The Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran removed the wall the same day.
MCEPL claimed that removing the wall, which had prevented a direct link between the Expressway and NH-48, would result in significant losses for the company as it would give people living in the area the opportunity to avoid paying toll. The plea said that the wall had been constructed by MCEPL around a year ago, keeping NHAI duly informed.
“Dwarka Expressway, that is NH-248, is currently planned to terminate before the toll plaza (From Delhi to Jaipur side). However, with the proposed illegal connection, the Dwarka Expressway provides an alternate route for any and all vehicles coming from Jaipur and going towards Delhi NCR and vice versa. Such alternate route will lead to a significant loss in the tollable traffic for the petitioner…
The Dwarka Expressway, coupled with such illegal connection, becomes an alternate road facility in breach of the Concession Agreement. Even a competing road which is tolled cannot be opened for traffic without there being any consequences under the Concession Agreement. In this case the proposed illegal road is not even tolled road, and this would lead to traffic bypassing the toll plaza resulting in loss of significant toll revenue. The toll revenues are absolutely integral to the financial well-being of the petitioner,” the plea said.
It said that by demolishing the wall in a “blatantly mala fide manner”, the Haryana government has violated the terms of agreement.
