SC hardens stand

NEW DELHI, APRIL 10. The Supreme Court today said it would not succumb to pressure tactics to relax its April 1 deadline for scrapping of old commercial vehicles and asked the Delhi Government to file a compliance report.

A three-judge Bench comprising the Chief Justice, Dr. A. S. Anand, Mr. Justice B. N. Kirpal and Mr. Justice V. N. Khare asked the Delhi Government to file by next week a report on compliance with the implementation of the deadline.

During the resumed hearing of a public interest litigation petition on curbing vehicular pollution, the Bench referred to the strike resorted to by taxi and autorickshaw owners and observed ``this court will not work under any kind of pressure''.

The amicus curiae , Mr. Harish Salve, submitted that it was wrong on the part of taxi and autorickshaw unions to resort to strike and said the taxi owners had even given a statement that they would continue to operate their old vehicles until the police arrested them. The Bench said ``there is no question of making exceptions for anybody. Relaxing the order will create a lot of problems''.

Mr. Salve said the court should consider whether the vehicles could be run on fuel other than compressed natural gas (CNG) and referred to the recent decision of the Centre to allow vehicles to run on LPG. He also brought to its notice largescale mixing of kerosene with diesel resulting in heavy pollution.

The court by its July 28, 1998 order had made it clear that no commercial vehicles which were over eight years old would be allowed to ply in the national capital after April 1, 2000. However, old buses could ply after converting to CNG as fuel.

The Delhi Government, which did not implement the order, moved an application on March 31 seeking extension of the timelimit by five years but it was rejected by the apex court. Consequently from April 1, about 1,800 buses were withdrawn by the Delhi Transport Corporation, and nearly 2,000 chartered buses were also off the road.

Meanwhile, the Action Committee of Unaided Private Schools withdrew its application seeking a relaxation of the July 28, 1998 order after the court pointed out that it did not contain necessary details and was also without an undertaking when it would implement the order. A similar application by Delhi Public School, which had sought time till June 30, was posted for hearing next week.

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