Odd-even scheme on till Jan 15: HC
12 Jan 2016 10:43 PM GMT
The court, however, directed the government to take into consideration the contents of the petitions, which had challenged the government’s scheme, before taking any further course of action.
A Bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said, though the implementation of the scheme may have caused hardship to a section of society, “Power of judicial review cannot be extended to determine correctness of such policy decision”.
“Keeping in view that restrictions under notification are only for a limited period of 15 days and it is stated that the scheme has been enforced as a pilot project to ascertain the reduction, if any, of pollution levels, we are of the view that interference by this court is not warranted,” it said.
The court also said in its 12-page order, “Implementation may have caused hardship to a section of the society, however, the power of judicial review cannot be extended to determine the correctness of such policy decision or to find out whether there could be more appropriate or better alternatives.”
“It’s neither within domain of the courts nor the scope of judicial review to embark upon an enquiry as to whether a particular public policy is wise or whether a better public policy can be evolved as suggested by petitioners,” the Bench added.
It also observed that “law is well settled that on matters affecting policy, courts will not interfere unless the policy is unconstitutional or contrary to statutory provisions or arbitrary or irrational or in abuse of power.
“Since, the policy decisions are taken based on expert knowledge of person concerned, courts are normally not equipped to question the correctness of a policy decision,” the Bench said.
On January 8, the High Court had reserved its order on the pleas challenging the scheme after Delhi government defended its stand on the issue saying per capita toxic gas emission had declined due to lesser number of cars on city roads. The High Court had earlier questioned the impact of the odd-even operation on pollution and asked the AAP government to consider restricting the programme, slated for a fortnight till January 15, to a week.
The court’s order came on a bunch of petitions filed by various individuals, including lawyers, who had challenged the AAP government’s December 28, 2015 notification imposing the scheme which allows private cars bearing odd registration numbers to ply on odd dates and those with even numbers on even dates.
‘Will re-implement scheme when required’
Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Monday welcomed the Delhi High Court’s decision not to interfere with the AAP government’s odd-even vehicle policy and said that government will re-implement the scheme as and when the need arises after January 15.
“We knew that High Court will take a decision keeping in mind the welfare of the citizens of Delhi, especially keeping in view the danger hovering over the respiratory health of children. “Since last Saturday, the samples from the permanent stations and also the samples which we have collected indicate that odd-even policy has played a role in bringing down the pollution levels.
“We hope that till January 15, we will get sufficient data. As announced earlier that the first phase of this odd-even formula will run for 15 days after which we will analyse it and also seek suggestions from experts on how to implement it in the long run. We will implement it again as and when the need arises,” said Rai.
Rai further said the Delhi government will provide subsidy on purchase of cycles, from the money collected as challans during the odd-even scheme’s implementation period to promote cycling. “Once the odd-even pilot plan is wrapped up, we will constitute a committee to work out further modalities of the proposed idea. The aim is to motivate people to use cycles as part of its drive to make Delhi pollution-free,” he said.
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