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Apex court to hear Ideal Road Builders petition on April 21

The Supreme Court will on April 21 hear the petition filed by Ideal Road Builders (IRB) to revoke the interim stay granted by Bombay high court (HC) to the toll collection it started in the city.

On February 27, an HC division bench headed by Justice A S Oka and Justice M H Sonak had during a joint hearing of public interest litigations and a case filed by the IRB granted interim stay to the toll collection started by the firm in January. The bench had stated that 95% work of construct 49-km roads under the Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP) had not been completed by IRB. It directed the developer to obtain a final completion certificate from the appropriate authority.

Kiran A Pawar and others in their PIL (179/2013) had sought a stay on toll collection on the grounds of the IRB project being incomplete. The developer had later filed a petition seeking police protection at the toll plazas. In October 2013, two other activists - Sharad Mirashi and Subhash Wani - had also approached the HC seeking a stay on toll collection. The HC clubbed all the petitions together in November 2013 and began the hearing in the case.

Pawar's lawyer Yuvraj Narvankar said, "The developer has moved the SC demanding revoking of the stay granted on toll collection, which was opposed by the people of the city. IRB has made the advocate general of Maharashtra government and the Union of India other parties to the case."

The HC had given the directions based on suggestions of the three-member committee appointed by the urban development department (UDD) of the state to assess the quality and progress of the road work. According to the report, the works involved in the project such as constructing footpaths and manholes, electricity pole shifting and storm water management are yet to be completed. However, IRB had started toll collection after the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation issued a provisional completion certificate after it assessed the quality of 7.5-km roads of the total project of construction of 49-km internal roads.

Source-On Request