The Supreme Court on Thursday sought report from its registry as to how the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) toll flyway matter which involves "hundreds of crores of rupees gets listed for hearing" contrary to the court's order.
The top court said its registry should state as to how the matter was listed despite its earlier order to be listed in last week.
"We see this case involving hundred of crores of rupees has been listed today contrary to the orders of the court. Registry should tell us. It seems there is more to it. We know what registry is doing," said a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khann.
The bench also refused to hear any arguments in the case saying, "We will not entertain any of the arguments".
In its order, it said: "Office to report as to why the present case has been listed for final disposal contrary to the order of this Court."
The top court's remark came at a time when another bench, which was hearing a lawyer's claim of "larger conspiracy" to frame Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi in sexual harassment allegations, said that "fixers are at play" in the apex court who try to fix benches in connivance with registry officials.
During the last hearing of the case on April 12, the top court had stayed the arbitral proceedings in the matter.
"We deem it appropriate to stay the proceedings in the arbitration and fix the matter for final disposal. List the matter for final disposal in the last week of April, 2019," the court had said in its order.
It had stayed arbitral proceedings between the Noida authority and private firm NTBCL over issues related to toll collection on Delhi-Noida Direct Flyway.
The proceedings were stayed after hearing an interim application filed by the Noida authority which has challenged the arbitral proceedings.
The interim application was filed by the authority in a pending appeal filed by Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd (NTBCL), which was running the flyway, in the apex court against the Allahabad High Court's order.
In October 2016, the high court had asked NTBCL to stop collecting toll from commuters plying on the DND flyway.
The apex court had on March 5 sought reply from NTBCL on Noida authority's interim application.
The authority had said that the apex court was seized of NTBCL's appeal and in the meanwhile, simultaneous arbitration proceedings were being conducted which should be stayed.
The authority had also said there cannot be simultaneous proceedings when the top court is hearing NTBCL's appeal and moreover, "nothing is due on the Noida authority".
The top court had earlier refused to stay the high court's order and had directed the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) to conduct the audit to ascertain the claim of NTBCL that it needed to continue collecting the toll to recover the dues.
Prior to this, the court had agreed to hear NTBCL's appeal challenging the Allahabad High Court's order.
The high court, in October 2016, had ruled that there will be no toll collected henceforth from those using the 9.2 km-long, eight-lane flyway.
The order was passed as the high court had allowed a PIL filed in 2012 by the Federation of Noida Residents' Welfare Association.
The PIL had challenged the "levy and collection of toll in the name of user fee by Noida Toll Bridge Company".
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