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With the intervention of the Delhi High Court,more than 300 Blueline buses will continue to ply on city roads,even as the Delhi government sought to take all such buses off the roads from Tuesday.
Mindful of the fact that the court had reserved the case for their final judgment,a Division Bench of Justices A K Sikri and Suresh Kait granted partial relief to the Blueline operators,who had moved applications to contest the notification issued by the government on Thursday.
The Bench has now allowed all the operators,whose permits are valid after Monday,to continue plying the buses on their designated routes without any hindrance.
Citing January 31 as the deadline,the government notification had ordered all operators of Blueline buses,including Whiteline buses,to deposit their permits in permanent mode in the transport authority.
The notification also issued a directive to the operators whose permits would expire after January 31. The operators whose permits expire after January 31 are hereby required to to deposit their permits,in permanent mode,on or before January 31,and shall not operate their buses after that, read the notification.
Following the notice,which was published in newspapers on Friday,the operators took it up with the Bench,saying that the government was not authorised to issue such a notification when the matter was seized of by the court for final disposal.
The applications further contended that while the non-renewal of the permits was comprehensible in view of the governments stance before the court which had also given its nod for the same the directive to the operators,whose permits were not expiring on January 31,was not in sync with the laws.
The applications also reiterated the argument that the transport authorities were still not prepared to take the burden of the commuters without Blueline buses,as they lacked required number of vehicles.
Responding,the counsel for the government referred to the notification,whose bottom-line read: This order is subjected to the further direction of the court and said the authorities were willing to go by the word of the court.
The Bench then said that the notification could only restrict those operators whose permits expired on January 31 and could not widen its ambit to those whose permits were valid after January 31.
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