JOSEPH TAJET Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners in these writ petitions seek virtually the same relief and they are, therefore, disposed of by this common judgment. The parties and exhibits are referred to in this judgment, unless otherwise mentioned, as they appear in W.P.(C) No.2812 of 2019.

(2.) The petitioners are persons residing within 10 kilometers radius of Paliyakkara Toll Plaza operated by the ninth respondent on NH-47 in the State in terms of a Build Operate and Transfer arrangement entered into by them with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for construction and maintenance of a section of the National Highway covering the toll plaza. As per the said arrangement, the ninth respondent is entitled to collect user fee as prescribed by the Government of India for the vehicles passing through the Toll Plaza. When the ninth respondent started collecting the user fee from 05.12.2011 after constructing the said section of the Highway, the people in the locality raised objections to the collection of user fee on the ground that the same would be oppressive for them as they have to pass through the toll plaza multiple times a day. The State Government intervened in the matter and issued Ext.P3 order on 18.2.2012, in terms of which the State Government undertook to reimburse the ninth respondent the user fee payable in respect of car/van/jeep owned by persons residing within 10 kilometers radius of the Toll Plaza. In the light of Ext.P3, monthly passes were being issued by the ninth respondent in the form of smart cards to the beneficiaries of Ext.P3 order, so as to enable them to pass through the toll plaza without paying the user fee and the beneficiaries of the said order are accordingly passing through the toll plaza without payment of user fee for the last almost 8 years.

(3.) During 2017, in order to remove the bottlenecks associated with the manual collection of user fee and ensure seamless movement of traffic, the Government of India has decided to introduce Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) across National Highways in the country and to install, maintain and operate a uniform, inter-operable hybrid ETC system on all lanes of toll plazas in the country. In order to enable electronic toll collection, the users have to fix in the windscreen of their vehicle a device called FASTag for making payment of user fee directly from the prepaid or savings account linked to it. Monthly passes, wherever applicable, were being issued on multiple modes of payment including cash and FASTag. It was noticed in course of time that in reality, majority of monthly passes are being issued and processed through cash lanes leading to severe congestion at the toll plazas. In the circumstances, in order to ensure effective decongestion at the toll plazas, it has been decided that all monthly passes, wherever applicable, shall be issued only through FASTag with effect from 01.04.2018 and it is being implemented throughout the country. In so far as the State Government has agreed to reimburse the user fee payable by persons residing in 10 kilometers radius of Paliyakkara Toll Plaza, the Project Director of NHAI has written Ext.P7 letter requesting the State Government to work out the modality of payment for converting the reimbursable free passes issued in terms of Ext.P3 order to FASTag transaction. The State Government has not taken any decision on Ext.P7 request.