SC upholds high court verdict on phasing out of Blueline buses

The Supreme Court on Monday threw out an appeal filed by a federation of Blueline bus owners and upheld the Delhi high court verdict ordering the 'killer buses'' phase-out from the Capital's roads.

The Supreme Court on Monday threw out an appeal filed by a federation of Blueline bus owners and upheld the Delhi high court verdict ordering the 'killer buses'' phase-out from the Capital's roads.

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A bench of justice RV Raveendran approved of the high court judgement and disagreed with the federation's plea that Delhi government had failed to meet up with the requirement to provide 11,000 buses for the Capital's residents. The petitioner added the government had introduced just 6,600 low floor buses.

"This is more than what meets the requirement," the bench said in reply to the petitioner's arguments. Referring to the HC verdict, it also said the Metro services too had augmented the transportation facility. The court refused to accept the federation's plea to direct the government to renew the permits of 2,041 buses.

It, however, asked state government counsel Nazmi Waziri to consider utilising the buses for feeder services from the Metro station to hinterlands. In response to the suggestion, Waziri told the court that it wasn't possible to put these buses into use, as for feeder buses smaller vehicles were required.

Waziri further apprised the court that 600 buses of the 2,041 that were phased out had already taken contract carriage licenses and 112 were given no-objection certificates (NOC) to get themselves registered outside Delhi.

In its appeal, the federation challenged the March 3 Delhi HC verdict stating that simply phasing out of Blueline buses would not bring down the number of road accidents in the Capital.