‘Will fight for people’s rights,’ says Delhi CM amid plan to move SC for overage vehicle ban review

“We want similar parameters in Delhi as the rest of the country. The government and administration will do their respective job. But people should not at inconvenienced,” she further added.

This comes a day after Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena wrote a letter to the CM, asking the government to seek a review petition before the apex court against its 2018 order, which restricted petrol vehicles beyond 15 years and diesel vehicles beyond 10 years from plying in Delhi-NCR. “How can a vehicle banned as unfit in Delhi run lawfully in other cities? This is against equal treatment,” the L-G stated.

While addressing the media, the CM on Sunday said, “When the CAQM had ordered that end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) would not be given petrol in the city… we were worried for Delhi at that time only,” the CM said while talking to the press.

Attacking the previous governments, she added, “The previous governments never worked on mitigating pollution. That was the reason why they were often slammed by the court. In the end, the court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had to take tough steps like this. But now things have changed.” A 2014 NGT order also prohibits the parking of vehicles aged over 15 years in public places.

The CM referred to the letter written by Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa last week to the CAQM, where he stated that the Capital, at this time, cannot accommodate such a provision. “The previous government did not prepare for enforcing such a rule. If this was enforced across NCR at the same time, that would have been different,” said Gupta, blaming the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for not installing the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras to keep a track of the ELVs.

On Saturday, the L-G in his letter underlined that the move violates the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, a central law. Under Section 59, only the central government can fix a vehicle’s life span. The rule is applicable pan India, and does not allow different rules for different geographies, he said.

Citing equality and socio-economic reasons, he underlined that such rules should be proportionate, non-arbitrary, and not solely based on a rigid age-based classification alone. He also said that the ban should be put on hold unless it is implemented across the NCR. He sought a comprehensive air pollution mitigation plan within three months.

The L-G also stressed that he had received representations and calls from “officials, concerned citizens, intelligentsia, environmental experts and public representatives” about challenges in implementing the fuel ban and “its efficacy in abatement of air pollution”.

Suggesting that the matter be taken up with the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, he said, “There is also merit in the argument that defining EOL status based solely on the passage of time, without reference to a vehicle’s mechanical fitness, emission performance, or usage, may not align with the broader legislative intent… A policy which does not distinguish between heavily polluting vehicles and well-maintained, low-use compliant vehicles, regardless of age, may also have disproportionate and regressive effects on the middle class and vehicle owners.”

He also said that implementing the rule just in Delhi is inequitable. “From a socio-economic standpoint, it is important to acknowledge that for people of the middle class, buying a vehicle is an investment of hard-earned life savings. It would be inherently inequitable to subject them, just because they are living in Delhi, to punitive measures of scrapping of their vehicles, merely on account of their residence within Delhi, particularly when the same vehicles remain lawful and roadworthy under identical statutory parameters in adjoining states… People in India have an emotional and sentimental attachment to vehicles that they have bought with their hard-earned money. It would be a travesty of justice to impound and scrap them even if they have run a few thousand kilometers and are perfectly maintained,” read the letter.