Times Now: New Delhi: Saturday, December 01, 2018.
A bench of the Supreme Court today dismissed a PIL seeking a ban on unauthorised stickers on cars and vehicles older than 15 years in the case of petrol cars and 10 years in the case of cars powered by diesel.
The Supreme Court of India today dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a ban on vehicles more than 15 years old. In his petition to the top court, the petitioner also sought a ban on the use of unauthorised stickers adorning two and four-wheeled vehicles across the national capital region (NCR).
During the course of the hearing, a bench of India’s top court observed, “Who is going to inspect whether the stickers are genuine or not”, asking whether it is the court’s job to verify the stickers. The petitioner mentioned that vehicles more than 15 years old cause deterioration of air quality across Delhi-NCR, a problem which has been highlighted specifically by the apex court more than once. In fact, the Supreme Court earlier this month asked the central government to “jail” municipal officials in Delhi for their failure to control the national capital’s spiralling air quality.
Earlier this month, the Delhi government's transport department deregistered over 40 lakh 'overage' vehicles, 10 years in the case of diesel and 15 years for petrol vehicles. The announcement by the Arvind Kejriwal-led cabinet came after the Supreme Court slammed the Delhi government for failing to comply with the National Green Tribunal's 2015 order of banning the use of old vehicles across the NCR.
However, data from the enforcement directorate asserted that only 3,196 of the 40 lakh vehicles deregistered by the transport department were actually impounded by concerned agencies. A petition lodged by one Deepak Juneja under the Right to Information (RTI) Act led to this development. In fact, the data also revealed that the transport department managed to impound only 106 old vehicles since the NGT banned them in 2014.
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