Gurgaon:
Police officer Bharti Arora, whose initiative led to the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway becoming toll free for a fortnight, was transferred ahead of a crucial hearing in the case on Thursday, an official said today.
Ms Arora, the Deputy Commissioner of Police heading the traffic wing took on the toll plaza contractor for not managing traffic on the 32-lane expressway, forcing the judiciary to order a temporary halt in toll collection.
The case will be heard on Thursday in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
While the Haryana government termed the transfer of the 1998 batch IPS officer a routine exercise - as 15 others too had been shunted out - Ms Arora did not give up charge today.
She had put up a foolproof case against the Expressway concessionaire, Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd (DGSCL), backed with evidence which eventually led the court to put a stay on toll collection for 15 days.
It was a team set up by her which ensured smooth ride on the expressway for the said fortnight, a miracle for residents in the National Capital Region (NCR) for whom long queues at the Sirhol toll plaza had become a daily affair.
According to police sources, Ms Arora had put together a proposal highlighting how resumption of toll collection would bring back chaos at the toll plaza.
Her department had also compiled videos, photographs and other evidence highlighting smooth traffic flow in the absence of toll collection.
The department planned to submit the same to the court at the hearing on Thursday.
"The transfer is a huge shock for all of us. We had conducted systematic investigation and got enough evidence to prove that it is just because of toll collection that there is chaos at plaza," said an official of traffic police who did not wish to be named.
"We also had visual evidence. If they were to be produced in court, the toll would have been permanently revoked," the source added.
"For years, traffic police were blamed for chaos but it was Bharti Arora who highlighted the real cause and even brought to fore the miscalculated loss by the expressway company," said another official.
In recent meetings between the local administration, the contractor and the National Highway Authority of India, it was Ms Arora who refused to let a 'cosmetic decongestion plan' get a go ahead.
Gurgaon's residents are up in arms against the officer's transfer. Many have lauded her work on Facebook.
Several Resident Welfare Associations have demanded that her transfer be cancelled.
Ms Arora did not respond to requests from IANS for a reaction to this story.