Court fines residents challenging highway project

The Delhi High Court Monday slapped a total fine of Rs.17,000 on petitioners challenging the Badarpur-Mathura road highway project being developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the Commonwealth Games 2010.

A division bench comprising Justices Vikaramjit Sen and V.K. Jain slapped a fine of Rs.1,000 each on the 17 petitioners who had alleged that NHAI has wrongly acquired the land for the development of the highway on the heavily congested Badarpur-Mathura road.

NHAI, developing a highway on the road to ease traffic movement for the 2010 games, contended that the land acquisition process was well within the law.

‘We would have ordinarily thought it fit to dismiss the petitions with exemplary cost of Rs.10,000 each, but in view of the fact that considerable delay had occurred in the tender of compensation, we desist from doing so,’ said the bench.

The petitioners – who own shops on the stretch – had also contended that their dislocation would severely affect their only source of livelihood.

The stretch, which includes a 3-km long six-lane elevated highway, was originally scheduled to be completed by December 2010 but the government is planning to construct it ahead of schedule for it to be ready in time for the Commonwealth Games in October 2010.

The petitioners had pleaded that the elevated corridor as developed by NHAI cannot be called as a highway but the court rejected their contention and ruled that a highway can be on the surface or above or below it.