Expressing dissatisfaction at the delay in widening of the national highway 58 section between Dehradun and Muzaffarnagar, the high court of Uttarakhand has given the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) a time of four months to complete the work. The division bench of chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari issued this direction on Friday.
During the hearing, the counsel representing the authority submitted an application seeking additional time to complete widening of the highway. The court granted the authority four months to complete the work. The petitioner’s counsel objected to this stating that earlier the court had directed the authority and the contractor to complete the work by September 20, 2019 but the work is still incomplete. The court had also ordered then that if the contractor fails to complete the work on time, a notice should be issued and the contract be cancelled. The authority cancelled the contract and issued fresh tenders, despite which the work could not be completed within the deadline.
According to the case details, Haridwar resident Akhtar Malik had filed a public interest litigation stating that work on widening the Haridwar-Dehradun-Roorkee-Muzaffarnagar national highway 58 had started in 2012-13. This work had not been completed within the set time frame which was causing major inconvenience to the public, the petitioner had stated.
