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<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">The bench of justice A S Oka and justice M H Sonak of the Bombay High Court postponed the hearing over the petitions filed by civic activists from Kolhapur demanding a stay over the ongoing toll collection by Ideal Road Builders (IRB) by one week, due to the failure of the Maharashtra government to reply to the objections raised by the counsel of the petitioners.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">The court said that the petition was filed in September 2013 and since then the Maharashtra government has not submitted its reply over the objections. It warned the counsel of the state government to put up their version within a week, or the court will hear the case without hearing the state&#39;s version.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">The petitioner had objected to the 700-page affidavit submitted by the IRB on December 9. Therein, the company had referred to the work completion certificate provided by the consultant agency by the Sovil, appointed by the KMC to monitoring the progress of the 49 Km road construction work assigned to IRB. The project, started in 2008, saw a tripartite agreement between the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, the IRB and the Maharashtra government.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">&quot;We referred to section 20 of the Motor Vehicles Act. The act states that the state government is entitled to levy toll tax on roads that are repaired or reconstructed, and we maintained that the roads constructed by the Ideal Road Builders under the Integrated Road Development Project have not yet been completed. Plus, the work done is of poor quality and therefore, they should not be allowed to continue to collect toll,&quot; Yuvraj Narvankar, counsel for Kiran Pawar, one of the first petitioners, told.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">&quot;The court wanted to hear the version of the state government, since there were the conflicting views from the KMC and the road development corporation. The court passed strictures on the state government, saying that it has failed to reply over the objections raised by the petitioners,&quot; said Narvankar.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Source-On Request</span></span></span></p>