Ajay Sura, TNN | Feb 24, 2015, 01.39AM IST
CHANDIGARH: In a relief to Army personnel, Chandigarh bench of the armed forces tribunal (AFT) on Friday stayed an order issued by the ministry of road transport and highways, cancelling the toll tax exemption granted to the defence personnel.
Hearing a petition filed by Maj P Hota, pleading that the letter issued by the transport ministry was an attempt to take away a statutory condition of serving military personnel, the AFT has directed that order issued on June 17, 2014 would be "kept in abeyance till the matter is appropriately resolved".
With this, the personnel would continue to be exempted from toll tax even if they are not "on duty" or travelling in their private vehicle.
The tribunal also issued notice to the Union government seeking its reply and fixed the next hearing on May 27.
The petitioner had requested the AFT to direct the ministries of transport and defence and the Army headquarters to coordinate and resolve the controversy in a time-bound manner.
Serving defence personnel have been up in arms against the letter issued by director (tolls) of the transport ministry in which it was stated that toll exemption was only available to defence personnel traveling "on duty".
However Section 3(a) of the Indian Tolls (Army & Air Force) Act, 1901 does not contain any stipulation of being "on duty" for personnel of the regular Army and the provision of "duty" is only applicable to Territorial Army and NCC personnel under Sections 3(b) and 3(c).
The defence services headquarters had also recently pointed out to the transport ministry that the order was against the Act and was also in contravention of earlier letters, which stated that there was no requirement of being "on duty" for personnel of regular forces.
The petitioner in this case also pointed out that the provisions of Section 3 of the Act were earlier challenged before the Punjab and Haryana high court in 2006, which upheld toll exemption to defence personnel.
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