The country’s highest court has delivered a sharp rebuke to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), refusing to rescue it from a Kerala High Court order that temporarily halted toll collection at the Paliyekkara plaza in Thrissur. The reason? A highway riddled with potholes and choked with traffic, where citizens were paying a toll for misery instead of mobility.
A Bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai, with Justice K Vinod Chandran, refused to buy the NHAI’s defence and made it clear that the burden cannot be shifted onto the public. The judges pointed out that motorists already pay a vehicle tax and should not be compelled to cough up toll charges for roads in shambles.
“Let citizens be free to move on the roads, for which they have already paid taxes—without paying extra just to navigate gutters and potholes, monuments of inefficiency,” the order declared.
The court’s words cut deeper, taking aim at the very model of toll-based highways built under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts. In a stinging commentary, the judges described toll collection as a “comedy of errors” where private players extract more than they spend, roads fall into ruin, and booth operators act like petty satraps while ordinary citizens stew in endless queues, engines running, wallets draining, and tempers fraying.
While the Solicitor General assured the Bench that repair work is underway, the court said toll collection could only resume once traffic flow is restored. Until then, the suspension ordered by the High Court stands firm.
On the financial dispute between the concessionaire and NHAI, the Supreme Court clarified that liability would depend on who was responsible for the black spots causing the gridlock. The High Court has been asked to add the contractor handling those stretches into the case.
In the end, the court dismissed the NHAI’s appeal, leaving citizens a rare victory on the long and bumpy road between taxes, tolls, and accountability.
