The Maharashtra Gover-nment found itself on the defensive on Monday as the Bombay High Court sought a reply on a plea made by activist Pravin Wategaonkar seeking revocation of the rights of a contractor appointed by it to collect toll from motorists
using the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in view of the recommendations by the Sumit Mullik committee.
Hearing an application filed before it by Wategaonkar, a HC Bench of justices AS Oka and RI Chagla directed the Maharashtra Government to file its say within three weeks on why it had not so far revoked the contract of the toll contractor, despite the latter having already collected more than the stipulated toll of Rs 1,362 crore.
Earlier, appearing for the contractor, senior lawyer Janak Dwarkanath argued that the fact that the Maharashtra government had not revoked the contract meant that it did not want to do so.
However, the HC bench sought a reply from the State Government on why it had revoked the toll contract despite the recommendation by the Sumit Mullik Committee.
Placing his arguments seeking revocation of the toll contract, Wategaonkar told the high court that in line with its 2014 poll promise of making “toll Mukt” Maharashtra, the BJP-led Maharashtra Government came out with a Government Resolution on December 12, 2015, constituting a committee to consider closure of toll plazas in the State.
On April 10, 2017. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced closure/ exemptions from toll to lMV’s, state transport buses etc on 65 toll stations across the State. He also announced separate committee to look into the issue of exemption of light motor vehicles on Mumbai-Pune Expressway and Five entry points to Mumbai city.
The Anand Kulkarni committee, appointed first by the state government, looked into and ascertained the exact number of vehicles that pass through the said Expressway and “suspicious” toll figures being submitted by the toll contractor from time to time engaged a agency to undertake traffic survey.
The subsequent Sumit Mullik Committee, in its report submitted to the state government, has adopted the recommendations of M/s Darashaw consultants in respect of Mumbai-Pune Expressway (MPEW) toll collection.
“M/s Darashaw considered bidding data/ cash-flows from April 1, 2016 to August 8, 2019 and recommended that the Government can buy out the project from Respondent-contractor till 2019 by payment of about RS. 1362 crore – being amount expected to be earned by Contractor for said balance concession period,” the petitioner stated.
According to Wategaonkar, the data now available on MSRDC website for period since April 1, 2016 till February 2018 shows the actual toll collection on MPEW and Mumbai-Pune section of NH4 together to be about Rs 1,507 crore, wrongful gain of Rs 145 cr to respondent-contractor.