Delhi High Court: Why not cut ‘odd-even’ to a week

Highlighting the city’s “insufficient” public transport and the “inconvenience” caused to people by the “odd-even” road restrictions move, the Delhi high court Wednesday asked the AAP government to consider if it can be limited to just a week instead of a fortnight as planned.

Terming as “vague” the status report submitted by the government on implementation of the scheme, a two-member bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath sought information on the pollution caused by taxis running on diesel and CNG that have been kept out of the purview of the odd-even formula. The judges also sought data on changes in the pollution level between January 1 and 7, the day the scheme will have completed a week.

The court said: “You (government) have to think about it. Your status report is vague and does not reveal much. There is no sufficient public transport. Is it really necessary to have it for 15 days Aren’t these six days enough for you We have permitted the government to run this scheme for one week, during which they must have collected data (on) pollution levels in the city.”

The bench added: “During these six days you must have collected data (on) pollution levels, we think it’s sufficient... You will have to think about the inconvenience caused to the public at large. There is a practical difficulty.” Hearing a bunch of petitions against the scheme, the court said while it doesn’t interfere with policy, the government must think about it as people were knocking on its door complaining of inconvenience caused to them. Fixing the next hearing on January 8, the court asked the counsel for the Delhi government to seek instructions on whether the pilot scheme can be restricted to a week instead of continuing for the full run till January 15.

Seeking quashing of the government notification on the “odd-even” formula, a petition by Delhi High Court Bar Association president Rajiv Khosla sought an explanation from the government on what jurisdiction it had to slap a fine of '2,000 on those violating the scheme without any amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act. Opposing the petitioners, senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra said: “The scheme is only for 15 days and the state is equally pained by the inconvenience caused to the public.”

In response to the court’s query on why women and two-wheelers had been exempted, the government said it was done as it is committed to providing security to women and that applying “odd-even” scheme to two-wheelers would have paralysed the city’s transport system given its inadequacies. The court also asked why no exemption was given to senior citizens and said car pooling could be “dangerous” for them in the long run. It also asked the Delhi government to file an affidavit on the infrastructure for persons with disabilities in the public transport system. Mr Mehra spoke of the prevalence of respiratory diseases among children and newborns, and said: “We are labelled as the most polluted city in the world.” To this, the Chief Justice interjected: “At present, you are causing more inconvenience to the public.”

Responding to the Chief Justice, Mr Mehra said: “We have to take into consideration the future of the next generation. The entire world is considering climate change. We also have to move a step. Even the Chief Justice of India and the judges of this court are supporting the scheme. The courts have been functioning well in the past few days.”