Cuttack, March 17: Orissa High Court has imposed restrictions on Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation charging user fees to collect garbage from residential and commercial establishments.

The Bhubaneswar municipal commissioner issued the gazette notification on February 5, 2015. It was implemented in January 2016.

The Confederation of Citizens Association (Bhubaneswar) had filed a petition seeking quashing of the notification. It came up on Thursday.

"After a preliminary hearing, the division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B.R. Sarangi posted the matter to March 27 for hearing, along with the replies of the parties concerned," the civic body's counsel Manas Ranjan Mohapatra said today.

The court issued a notice to the corporation to show cause by then, why the notification to collect user fees for collection of garbage should not be quashed. "In the interim, the court allowed a stay order on implementation of the notification till March 27," Mohapatra said.

The confederation has challenged imposition of the user fees on the ground that it amounted to being charged twice for the same service. The petition questions as to when holding tax took care of waste management, why impose an extra fee.

The corporation had claimed that holding tax did not have any connection with user fee. The user fee rules have been framed in accordance with the Orissa Municipal Act, 1950.

It added that the Centre's revised rules for solid waste management mandate collection of user fees. If the civic body failed to implement the rules, it would be deprived of central grants.