Mumbai: The Bombay high court, while refusing to immediately ban school vans, has asked the state to do away with them in a phased manner, and ensure that safety norms are complied with and that the lives of students are not put at stake.

A division bench of Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Girish Kulkarni, while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a NGO, was informed by advocate Rama Subramanium that in two years since filing the PIL, very little had been done by the state to implement various directions and recommendations of the court apart from school bus safety norms. Advocate Subramanium also told the court that while school buses conforming to at least 70 per cent of the safety norms were being victimised by the state and the transport office, school vans and rickshaws which did not follow even a single safety norm were being allowed to function nonchalantly.

 The petitioner sought stringent action against the state for failing to take cognisance of the fact that the safety of school children was being compromised by school vans and rickshaws which did not follow any norms.

 Responding to the petitioner’s allegations, the state, through government pleader Abhinandan Vagyani, told the court that out of the 1.1 lakh schools in the state, nearly 90,000 had school bus committees as stipulated by the rules. He said that the state had been conducting checks of vans before giving them permission to ply in the new academic year.

 However, when advocate Subramanium again objected to the use of vans, the court said, “Vans are a faster and more economical option for many parents and the same cannot be banned immediately. We can direct the state to phase out the vans and find alternate options that are within the ambit of the law.”

 The bench further told public bus service providers including BEST and MSRTC to have separate buses for use by school children and ensure that these buses conformed to the rules. The state was asked to file an affidavit in this regard within two weeks.