Bombay High Court: The Division Bench of Milind N. Jadhav and S.J. Kathawalla, JJ., refused to grant any ad-interim order in favour of ‘MEP’ Infrastructure Developers Ltd. (‘Petitioner’) in view of the order dated 14-01-2022 passed by G.S. Patel, J. where the Court directed MEP Infrastructure to refrain from taking any action towards disposal of or creation of any third party rights in respect of its immovable properties in Maharashtra.
Facts:
SDMC being a statutory body is liable to collect toll taxes from vehicles entering into Delhi. It is one of the major sources of revenue for all the Municipal Corporations of Delhi. In order to collect such taxes SDMC had, by way of a tender process, awarded a contract to MEP Infrastructure Developers Ltd. at the highest bid of Rs. 1206 Crore per year for a period of five year.
MEP faltered in timely payment of the Rs. 1206 Crore divided on a weekly basis. After which SDMC started to recover the toll amounts from MEP.
The Commissioner of SDMC by exercising his powers under the DMC Act sought to recover toll tax by attachment of properties of MEP in Delhi and beyond.
In such exercise, SDMC successfully reached the doors of MEP in Maharashtra and obtained an order from Bombay High Court in October 2021, where the Court had directed the local authorities to recover the monies against MEP as per the law. In such exercise, the local authorities of the respective district in Maharashtra have already attached a few properties of MEP.
However, to obstruct such exercise of recovery by SDMC through local functionaries, MEP filed another writ petition before Bombay High Court.
The Court by way of interim order dated February 14, 2022 directed MEP to refrain from taking any action towards disposal of or creation of any third party rights in respect of its immovable properties in Maharashtra. Further, High Court directed MEP to maintain balances in its Bank accounts as on date as a security towards the amounts due.
The review petition was filed seeking review of the Order dated 27-10-2021 (“Subject Order”) passed by this Court whereby this court had issued writ of mandamus against Respondent No. 2 to 5 herein to take action as per law and discharge their statutory duty.
Present Order:
The Court refused to grant ad interim relief to the MEP Infra for already being protected in view of the Order dated 14th January, 2022 passed by Justice G.S. Patel directing the parties to maintain status quo.
The matter is stood over to 04-03-2022.
[MEP Infrastructure Developers Ltd. v. South Delhi Municipal Corpn., Review Petition 9 of 2022, order dated 18-02-2022]
Mr Ravi Kadam, Senior Advocate with Mr Venkatesh Dhond, Senior Advocate a/w Mr Zal Andhyarujina, Senior Advocate a/w Mr Rashmin Khandekar, Ms Tanmayi Gadre, Mr Deepak Deshmukh, Ms Swati Singh and Mr Vivek Dwivedi by Naik & Naik for the Petitioner
Mr Sanjay Vashishtha a/w Ms Shreya Shrivastava and Ms Dishya Pandey for Respondent 1
Ms Neha Bhide, ‘B’ Panel Counsel for the State
