SC to hear plea on DND toll issue; will apex court uphold Allahabad HC order to make Flyway toll free?

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Friday hear a plea filed by the Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd. (NTBCL) challenging the Allahabad High Court order to make the Delhi-Noida-Direct Flyway toll free with an immediate effect.

The order to make the DND Flyway toll free was passed by the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday.

The NTBCL had on Thursday challenged the verdict before the Supreme Court which agreed to grant an urgent hearing and posted the matter for Friday.

The company mentioned the case before a bench headed by Justice A R Dave and urged the court to list the matter for Friday as the SC would be on a week-long vacation for Diwali thereafter.

The DND Flyway is a 9.2 km, access-controlled, eight-lane road connecting south Delhi to Noida and east Delhi. On Wednesday, the Allahabad HC said NTBCL had earned back the construction cost of the Flyway and there was no need to continue collecting toll.

The high court order came on a PIL filed by Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Associations (FONRWA), which had moved the court in 2012. In April, FONRWA filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court seeking an order to restrain NTBCL from collecting toll on the DND Flyway.

In June, the SC directed Allahabad HC to decide on FONRWA's plea in three months.

The HC held that "right to levy and collect user fee from commuters as conferred upon the concessionaire under the concession agreement suffers from excessive delegation and is contrary to the provisions of UP Industrial Development Act".

"The user fee which is being levied/realised is not supported by the legal provisions relied upon by the concessionaire (Noida Toll Bridge Company), Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (promoter and developer of the project) and the Noida Authority," the HC said.

The DND Flyway is the shortest route between Noida and Delhi, the other routes being via the Nizamuddin Bridge and Okhla Barrage.

The eight-lane expressway is 9.2 km-long. The project was commissioned on February 7, 2001.

The DND Flyway - which is one of the better-run toll plazas - connects Delhi on the west bank of the Yamuna with Noida and East Delhi.

It has witnessed several protests and demonstrations seeking scrapping of the Rs. 28 toll following allegations that the operator of the 9.2-km-long stretch (including the Mayur Vihar link) has already made significant profits.