Mumbai: Larsen&Toubro and SCOMI Engineering (LTSE) who jointly operated the Mumbai Monorail services till this month, will have to forfeit their deposit worth Rs 184.5 crore, after the Bombay High Court injunction lapsed on Wednesday. This injunction was granted on December 14, to restrain the bank from making payments for the bank guarantees given to Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

“As the matter did not appear before the bench on December 18, the injunction was granted by Justice G S Patel on December 14, till Wednesday evening, cannot be extended,” said one of the advocates representing the petitioner (LTSE), who did not wish to be named. After incurring losses for a decade, the Mumbai Monorail Operations and Maintenance (O&M) will be handled by the MMRDA itself.

The authority has terminated the contract on December 14, due to the failure of LTSE to perform and fulfil contractual obligations. R A Rajeev, commissioner of MMRDA in his statement said, “Due to the failure, Phase-2 of the Monorail (Wadala to Sant Gadge Maharaj Chowk) has been delayed inordinately.

Moreover, they also failed to maintain the quality of Monorail services in the Phase-1.” This development has come after the two agencies failed to respond to the legal notice issued by MMRDA, warning them to fulfil the contractual obligations. The petitioners has so far not challenged the termination order issued against the agencies, but they plan to do so.

“SCOMI Engineering is one of the expert companies which has knowledge of monorail operations. Although MMRDA has taken over the operations, looking at the past instances of a fire, breakdown of monorail and other mishaps, the lives of commuters cannot be put at risk. They cannot run the operations without involving any expert company,” said the advocate.