NHAI tells Delhi High Court it will keep toll tax policy change in abeyance till operators are heard

The National Highways Authoritys of India (NHAI) told the Delhi High Court on Friday that it will keep its circular on toll tax collection in abeyance till the time it hears and decides the highway operators' opposition to it [Highway Operators Association (I) v. National Highways Authority of India & Anr].

The statement was made by NHAI Standing Counsel Santosh Kumar before Justice Sachin Datta.

After taking the statement on record, the High Court disposed of the plea filed by the Highway Operators Association (HOAI) and Roadstar Infra Investment Trust (RIIT) challenging the NHAI's policy circular dated September 13.

This circular revised the 'linking factor' used for converting wholesale price index (WPI) data between different base years.

On the last date of hearing, the Court had asked the NHAI to not take coercive action on concessionaires under the contentious September 13 circular.

Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium had then appeared for Highway Operators Association and argued that the linking factor had been recuded arbitrarily.

Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar, appearing for Roadstar Infra Investment Trust, had said that before implementing the change, the NHAI did not issue any notice to the concessionaires.

The linking factor is a multiplier which is used to maintain continuity in the time series data on the WPI. When the base year changes, the linking factor is used to link the WPI of the current series to the WPI of the previous series to ensure that the numbers remain comparable.

The concessionaries have argued that NHAI arbitrarily and without any basis, reneged from the agreed linking factor of 1.641 (which was being used consistently for the last 7 years), for converting the WPI of all commodities from the base year 2011-12 to the earlier base year 2004-05.

The petitioners argued that this change was in complete departure from the methodology adopted in the previous circular of 2018.

Senior Advocates Gopal Subramanium and Rajiv Nayar and advocate Gauri Subramanium assisted by a team from Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas comprising Raunak Dhillon (Partner), Uday Khare (Partner), Isha Malik (Principal Associate), Nihaad Dewan (Senior Associate), Niharika Shukla (Senior Associate), Angela Dua (Associate), Anusha Sarkar (Associate) appeared for HOAI and RIIT.