The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has been awarded Rs 1,202 crore by an arbitration tribunal in a case involving a private road developer for non-payment of outstanding premium and revenue share. This is the highest sum NHAI has ever won in an arbitration case with a concessionaire.
The award relates to the Tumkur–Chitradurga six-laning Project in Karnataka against Concessionaire IRB, decisively upholding NHAI’s contractual claims while substantially rejecting the concessionaire’s claims.
IRB Chitradurga Tollway brought the case against NHAI when the highway building agency refused to defer the premium payment after repeated defaults.
The project, awarded during 2010-11 under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mode for a concession period extending up to June 2037, required the concessionaire to pay an annual premium of Rs. 140 crores, with a five percent annual escalation.
Following repeated defaults in premium payments, NHAI withdrew the premium deferment facility in August 2019 in accordance with the concession agreement.
The concessionaire sought restoration of the premium deferment and claimed an amount of Rs. 95 crore, besides seeking an extension of the concession period by 138 days. NHAI firmly contested these claims and also lodged counter-claims for premium due till November 2022 of Rs.679 Crore and non-payment of revenue share for Tumkur Bypass of Rs.96 Cr.
The Arbitral Tribunal accepted NHAI’s position by rejecting the concessionaire’s monetary claim of Rs. 95 crore, restricting the concession period extension to only 23 days, as against the 138 days sought by the concessionaire. The Tribunal awarded Rs 1,202 crore to NHAI towards outstanding premium and revenue share payable up to June 2026.
The award was announced by the tribunal comprising former Supreme Court judges—Justice G S Singhvi and Justice B S Chauhan. It also included former National Company Law Appellate Tribunal member V P Singh.
In another case, NHAI got the liability of Rs 161.36 crore reduced to only Rs 35.91 crore. This liability reduction came through an arbitration tribunal award that favored the concessionaire constructing the 30 km long Bijni–West Bengal Border Four-Laning Project in Assam.
During recent months, NHAI has successfully defended claims and won significant sums in counter-claims. In April this year, in the arbitration concerning the Panipat–Jalandhar Six-Laning BOT Project, claims amounting to Rs. 8,375 crore raised by the concessionaire were rejected and instead NHAI was awarded Rs. 820 crore on its counter-claims.
In March 2026, in an arbitration case related to the six-laning of the Kamrej–Chalthan section of NH-48 in Gujarat claims of around Rs. 174.49 crore raised by the contractor were considered, but the Arbitral Tribunal awarded only Rs. 54 Lakhs to settle the case.