The committee headed by a retired district judge gave a stinging report about the road condition and led the bench to tell the NHAI - "no toll for bad roads".

• This led the bench to tell the NHAI and concessionaries - "no toll for bad roads".

• "General public should not be made to suffer on both counts - bad roads and hefty toll," the bench said while ordering the concessionaire to refund Rs 11 crore it had collected as toll to the central government, which had taken over the road from the private party in March.The central government wanted to score a point by informing the court that it had acted reasonably by reducing the toll by 60% since taking over the highway for repair work.

• But the court was unwilling to allow commuters to pay such charges when the condition of the 26-km stretch was poor.However, taking into account the Centre's plea that the entire stretch was not completely damaged and that the road was motorable in parts, the bench rescinded the central notification ordering collection of toll at 40% of the earlier rate and directed that the new toll would be 20% of the earlier fee.The case would not have got such attention from the apex court had a PIL petitioner Lal Manohar Pandey not approached the Chhattisgarh High Court complaining against the pot-holed 26-km Raipur-Durg stretch, on which the concessionaire extracted hefty toll.

• The HC order was challenged in the SC by the private contractor The SC said the central government could charge toll at 20% of the original fee till the road was fully repaired and a completion certificate was filed with the ministry of road transport after inspection by the committee headed by the retired district judge.The ministry of road transport and DSC Ventures Pvt Ltd had entered into a concession agreement on May 8, 2003 for construction, operation and maintenance of Raipur-Durg section of NH-53 on a build, operate and transfer basis.Importantly, the court after disposing of the matter said there was a need for penalizing heavy vehicles guilty of overloading.

Here are some relevant news items:^{credits to u-sr33}

• No toll for bad roads, SC tells NHAI in pro-user order

• No toll for bad roads: Supreme Court to NHAI

• No toll for bad roads, SC tells NHAI in pro-user order

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