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<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">The Bombay High Court (HC) on Monday postponed the hearing over the toll collection issue on the petitions filled by road construction company Ideal Road Builders (IRB) and civic activists to February 24 after the state government sought time to study the case.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Maharashtra advocate general (AG) Darius Khambata appeared on behalf of the state government as the HC bench comprising justices A S Oka and M H Sonak maintained that the case will have repercussions across the state.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Yuraj Narvankar, counsel for Kiran Pawar, one of the first petitioners in the case, told, &quot;We objected to the IRB&#39;s stand that it has infused more than INR 1,000 crore in the project, while the project is actually worth INR 230 crore according to the agreement made in 2008 with the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation and Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation. We raised objections as by claiming any amount, the developer company will recover the money from the people. The court while going into technical details sought answer from the state government after which Khambata demanded time to study the issue and will file an affidavit in the court during next hearing.&quot;</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">During the last hearing on January 22, the court had ordered the state government to submit the details of the report of the expert committee appointed to review the completion of road construction work. &quot;Accordingly, the urban development department of the state government tabled the report which categorically mentioned that the project is not 95% complete, the benchmark needed to start toll collection. The issue of completion and IRB&#39;s claims are likely to be raised by the AG in the next hearing,&quot; Narvankar added.</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>