HC says no toll for trucks going to warehouse corpn

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court quashed a tender awarded by the Tambaram Municipal Corporation to collect toll fees for the lorries and trucks entering the Central Warehousing Corporation — a union government-run storage facility in Chitlapakkam.

Justice N Sathish Kumar passed the order on allowing a petition filed by CWC. The firm prayed for a direction to declare the proceedings of the Tambaram Corporation in connection with the award of the tender to collect toll from lorries coming to the petitioner’s premises as null and void. However, the respondent corporation submitted that the toll was imposed only to rebuild and repair the roads namely Nehru Street, Chitlapakkam second main road, and Hasthinapuram main road leading to the CWC.

Justice Sathish Kumar held that the counter shows that Rs 29 lakhs have been spent by the corporation to rebuild Nehru Street, Chitlapakam second main road, and Hasthinapuram main road, adding, “It is a compensatory levy. The essence of compensatory tax is that the services rendered or facilities provided should be more or less commensurate with the tax levied and tax should not be patently more than what was required,” the judge held.

Finally, the judge quashed the order to collect toll fees for the lorries visiting CWC.