NEW DELHI: Putting a spanner in the AAP government's proposal to make Metro rides free for women, the Supreme Court on Friday warned it will not hesitate to intervene against freebies that amount to misuse of public money and impact the financial health of Delhi Metro .

Adjudicating the dispute between the Centre and Delhi government over provision of funds for construction of Metro Phase-IV, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta said DMRC would face losses if people are allowed free rides and raised questions on how public money could be used for handing out sops.

"Metro cannot bear such free services and it is bound to go into a loss when you give free sops and facilities. If it happens who will be responsible for it? You want to make metro travelling free and you want central government to pay for it," the bench said.

The Centre and Delhi government have been at loggerheads over funding and sharing of financial liabilities, delaying construction on Phase IV by three years.

The bench made it clear that it is not "powerless" to stop misuse of public money for giving freebies and the Kejriwal government could be in "difficulty". It said the court has jurisdiction to direct the government on channelising pubic funds for good causes. "The NCT government is bound to ensure that financial health of DMRC is maintained and no steps should be taken by it so that it runs into loss," the bench said.

"Do not do anything against public interest," the court told senior advocate Dhruv Mehta, appearing for the Delhi government. Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, contended that DMRC had been a profitable venture which has not witnessed any operational losses in recent years.

The proposal for Phase IV, consisting of six corridors with a total length of 103.94 km, was submitted in 2014 by DMRC and work was to begin in 2016 but could not take off due to differences between the two governments. The Centre in March moved to approve three of the six corridors.

The three corridors - Mukundpur-Maujpur, RK Ashram-Janakpuri West and Aero City-Tughlakabad corridors - with a total length of 61.6 km will have 17 underground and 29 elevated stations. Of its total length, 22.3 km will be underground and 39.3 km as an elevated section. The other three proposed corridors are Rithala-Bawana-Narela, Inderlok-Indraprastha and Lajpat Nagar-Saket G Block.

Settling the dispute between the Centre and Delhi government, the bench said financial liability of Phase IV metro arising out of operational losses and default in loan payment would be borne by Delhi and the land cost for the project would be shared equally between the two governments.

The court rejected the Centre's plea that it cannot be asked to pay for the land cost as it is against the Metro policy framed by it in 2017. The Delhi government had insisted on it, saying the Centre paid half of the land cost in earlier three phases.

"Considering the peculiar position of Delhi and also the pollution aspect, we direct that 50% of the land cost shall be borne by the NCT government and rest 50% by Centre," the bench said and directed the Centre to release Rs 1,223.60 crore as land cost to DMRC. It directed that there should not be any further delay in construction of Phase IV of the metro network.



In Video: Free metro ride for women: SC slams AAP govt over 'sops'