HYDERABAD: A division bench of Telangana High Court on Friday directed the petitioners’ counsel to furnish the list of government officials, politicians and other dignitaries who were exempted from paying toll tax on highways.
The bench was dealing with the petition filed by advocates D Vidyasagar and S Naresh with a plea to declare the decision of the authorities concerned in notifying majority of the roads connecting various places in the country as national and State highways and compelling the common people to pay huge amounts towards toll taxes in addition to life tax paid during vehicle purchase, as illegal.
Petitioners’ counsel P Shashi Kiran told the court that the State government has been collecting life tax from the vehicle owners at the time of purchase and once the vehicle owner crosses the city limits, he gets into the ambit of toll gate as there were no other alternative roads available to ply. A common man is forced to shell out money at toll gates which is nothing but fleecing money from taxpayers, while the officials of the Centre and State governments and other high profile politicians are exempted from paying toll tax.
The petitioners who are practising lawyers were travelling to various places in the State and also to attend cases at AP High Court in Amaravathi and were forced to pay toll charges at all the times. The action of the authorities is discriminatory and violates Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution, the petitioners’ counsel argued.
Intervening, the Chief Justice pointed out that the petitioners have not given the names of the officials, politicians and other dignitaries who were exempted from paying toll tax. In fact, the toll tax is being collected for the maintenance of roads in a proper manner to benefit vehicle owners. As these issues pertains to the policy decisions of the governments, the Courts have a limited role to play to have judicial review, the CJ observed.
The bench directed the petitioners’ counsel to furnish the list of persons who were exempted from paying toll tax and adjourned the case hearing by four weeks