New Delhi, Jan 19 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday permitted Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd (NTBCL) to put advertisements on the Delhi-Noida-Delhi (DND) flyway located inside the territory of Uttar Pradesh.

A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai asked the state government authority to refrain from taking any coercive action against the concessionaire.

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The commercials put by the NTBCL were pulled down due to alleged non-payment of an increased license fee by the authorities.

The NTBCL, represented by lawyers' firm Karanjawala & co, has been opposed to the increase in the license fees.

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The apex court has now fixed the plea of NTBCL for a final hearing in March 2022 and for the time being, the private firm will have to pay license fees of Rs 125/square feet to the Noida Authority.

Inaugurated as a toll road in January 2001, toll collection was discontinued on the DND flyway after an order passed by the Allahabad High Court in October 2016.

The NTBCL has appealed against the High Court order in the apex court.

Senior lawyers A M Singhvi and Siddharth Bhatnagar, appearing for the firm, said the Noida Authority had confiscated its property with the sole aim to irreparably harm its financial assets, its revenue stream from advertisements, and undermine its viability as a going concern.

NTBCL, in its petition, has said that the company was solely reliant on advertising revenues for the day-to-day maintenance of the bridge after the collection of toll was suspended.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)