The Hindu 28.02.2014
Delhi civic body to tax commercial vehicles on Gurgaon Expressway
Delhi High Court directs the Haryana Police to assist the municipal body
The Delhi High Court has paved the way for the South
Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) to collect entry tax from commercial
vehicles entering Delhi from the Rajokri toll plaza at 24 km milestone
on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. The control of the expressway was
recently taken over by the Infrastructure Development Finance Company
(IDFC), the lead financer of the project, putting an end to a long-drawn
legal tussle.
A Bench of Justice Manmohan Singh took
on record the settlement arrived at between the SDMC and the National
Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for allowing the civic body to
collect the entry tax. It said the Haryana Police will provide
assistance for the same. The Court ordered that “the parties to the
settlement shall be bound by the terms and conditions arrived at in the
meeting held between the NHAI and the SDMC on February 25”.
The
Bench passed the order on a petition filed by the SDMC seeking
direction to restrain the Delhi Government, the NHAI and others from
preventing it from collecting toll tax from Rajokri toll plaza by using
the existing infrastructure and its own manpower.
The
High Court was on Wednesday informed that in compliance with its
February 21 order, a joint meeting was held between the NHAI and the
Delhi Municipal Corporation on February 25 and the dispute resolved.
Both parties placed the minutes of the meeting before the court, which
said: “The Haryana Police to give the assistance and to do the needful
in order to implement the minutes of the meeting.”
The
parties have agreed that the NHAI will allow the SDMC to collect entry
tax from commercial vehicles in six toll lanes located on extreme left
side on Jaipur-Delhi bound carriageway and also on split plaza booths.
They
also agreed that the “islands between the toll lands of the abandoned
toll plaza will remain as it is for the time being and further
improvements will be taken up to alert the traffic by way of providing
traffic bollards on the nosing of the island”.