The Bombay high court on Friday directed the Maharashtra government to strictly implement its Aurangabad bench’s order passed in 2001 and take action against all private vehicles illegally ferrying passengers for money.
The state government has also assured the division bench of Justice Naresh H. Patil and Justice S.B. Shukre that it would form a committee, which would make surprise visits to ST depots and if any illegal vehicles are found carrying passengers, action would be taken against them. This means action would be taken against all private buses, taxis, jeeps or any other vehicles that are running inter-state without permission and causing losses to ST busses.
The court issued this direction while hearing a public interest litigation filed by advocate Datta Mane. Mr Mane had filed the PIL after reading news that the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation’s (MSRTC) had proposed that concessions on bus fares for various sections of society be discontinued as it is incurring losses because the state government is not reimbursing that money. The decision meant that concessions to approximately 72,00,000 passengers including school and college students, blind and differently abled persons, senior citizen and sportsmen, among others, were supposed to be stopped.
Many government departments were supposed to reimburse MSRTC for the concessions, but they have not been paying the amount and currently more than Rs 3,000 crore is due to the corporation.
Though the MSRTC decided not to implement its decision to stop giving concessions pending this petition, during the hearing it was mentioned before the court that the corporation is facing daily losses of crores of rupees due to plying of illegal private vehicles also. It said that though Aurangabad bench of the high court has already directed government to take action against illegal private vehicles the government is not implementing this order.
The Corporation also told the court that if it does not incur losses then it would be in a position to provide better vehicles to its passengers.
The court on Friday directed the government to strictly implement the Aurangabad bench’s order and file a report on December 9.
