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The high court was hearing a contempt plea filed by the lawyer for non-compliance with the undertaking to fix the potholes on the Mumbai Goa Highway.
A division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Arif Doctor on Wednesday imposed a cost of Rs. 50000 on the National Highway Authority of India and the State Government for breach of their undertaking for construction of Mumbai Goa highway till 2020.
The bench imposed the cost on the respondents while noting that it was the third time that the petitioner had come to the court seeking implementation of the undertaking given by the NHAI and State government.
The high court was informed by the petitioner in person, Advocate Owais Pechkar that potholes were not fixed despite the court's order.
Earlier, when the PIL was filed before the High Court for fixing potholes on the Mumbai Goa Highway, the NHAI had given an undertaking before the court the issue of potholes need not be looked into since the highway road is being widened and the potholes would be taken care of.
The bench questioned the NHAI as to why it had not applied for an extension of time since the period of 2 years which was undertaken by NHAI was already over in 2020.
The counsel appearing for NHAI informed the court that it had issued tenders and allotted the work to a contractor. However, the NHAI had issued a show cause notice to the contractor for not completing the work and the contractor had filed another application before the Delhi High Court.
Advocate Pechkar today also filed an affidavit before the court in which he had attached the pictures of the potholes on the Mumbai Goa Highway that were clicked on 2 July 2023.
The division bench directed the Project Director of NHAI and the Superintendent Engineer of PWD to conduct a survey and file a report before the high court within four weeks.
During one of the earlier hearings before the division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Abhay Ahuja on Monday pulled up the National Highway Authority of India for not taking ‘seriously’ the issue of potholes on the Mumbai Goa Highway (NH 66).
Case title: Owais Pechkar vs UOI
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