UP Five held for assaulting advocate at Barabanki toll plaza NHAI terminates agency contract

Barabanki (UP), Jan 16 (PTI) Police have arrested five persons, including the toll plaza manager, in connection with the alleged assault on an advocate at the Bara toll plaza here, while the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has terminated the contract of the fee collection agency, officials said on Friday.
     The incident occurred at the toll plaza, located in Haidergarh tehsil on the Lucknow-Sultanpur stretch of National Highway 731, on January 14. Following the alleged assault, police registered a case against five toll plaza employees and they were later arrested, Kotwali in-charge Abhimanyu Mall said.
     He said the accused allegedly assaulted advocate Ratnesh Shukla, a resident of Pratapgarh, during a dispute over the passage of a car. The incident triggered protests, with a large number of advocates gathering at the toll plaza on Thursday and forcing a shutdown of operations.
     In the wake of the incident, NHAI terminated the contract of the user fee collection agency, M/s Skylark Infra Engineering Private Limited, officials said. The authority has also issued a show-cause notice to the agency and proposed debarring it from participating in NHAI tenders or contracts for one year.
     NHAI has further proposed forfeiture and encashment of the Rs 5.3 crore bank guarantee or performance security submitted by the agency under the existing contract, terming the assault a serious violation of contractual conditions.
     Officials said the incident reflected the agency's failure to ensure discipline, supervision and adherence to contractual obligations, under which deployed personnel are required to maintain decorum and not misbehave with road users.
     They added that the agency has been blacklisted and toll operations at the plaza have been handed over to another agency.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)