CHENNAI : After pulling up authorities of NHAI for poor maintenance of Maduravoyal-Walajapet stretch of Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway, a division bench of Madras High Court has impleaded the Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation and Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Greater Chennai police as party-respondents in a suo-motu taken up PIL.
When the matter came up before a bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee on Thursday, photographs and other material were produced before it. After perusing them, the judges noted that only patch works are being carried out on the particular stretch. Despite this, toll fee is being collected from road users. No responsibility has been fixed on the concessionaire and no follow-up action was taken up by NHAI officials, the bench said.
The bench then issued notices to NHAI and to State Highways department directing them to respond by December 9. Assistant Solicitor-General G Karthikeyan took notice for the former and Additional Government Pleader E Manoharan for the latter.The PIL was based on a note put up by Justice M Sathyanarayanan to the Chief Justice with regard to the bad condition of the highway. It suggested that the road might be relaid afresh in accordance with the specification of Indian Roads Congress and in the meanwhile not to collect toll fee.
The equality clause enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution has been strictly adhered to by the government in the maintenance of public roads, a division bench of the Madras High Court has observed.
Even the roads frequented by VIPs, including the ones used by High Court judges, are being kept in bad shape. Thus, the government is strictly implementing the equality clause at least in the (poor) maintenance of the roads, the bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee said while passing interim orders on the suo-motu taken up PIL relating to the issue, on Thursday.