PIL in HC against govt's proposed 'odd-even' curb on vehicles

A PIL was today moved in the Delhi High Court against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's plan to restrict plying of private vehicles having odd and even registration numbers on alternate days from January 1 in the national capital to combat air pollution.
The matter was mentioned before a bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva who listed it for hearing on December 9.
The petitioner, Shweta Kapoor, has sought directions restraining implementation of the policy, saying "imposition of such a policy/law would be contrary to public interest and has been imposed without any public debate or discussion and without understanding the situation and facts and circumstances in India".

The plan is expected to be implemented from January 1, 2016.
The petition, filed through advocate R K Kapoor, has questioned whether the AAP government has the power to modify the vehicular movement in the national capital.
Terming the national capital's public transportation system as "undeveloped and unsafe", the petitioner has said that it would create problems for women who travel alone as well as differently-abled persons who use modified vehicles to commute.

Shweta, who is also a lawyer, has said in her petition that "curtailing the constitutional rights of the citizens by following unreasonable and arbitrary measures as is being done in the present case by the respondents is only going to add to the chaos and shall not actually uproot the actual causes of pollution from the city which include dust, entry of trucks inside the city and traditional ways of waste disposal".

She said the government has not paid any attention to dust from construction sites and has focused only "on a limited question of private vehicular pollution".
"The respondents have failed to check the main cause of concern of pollution in Delhi and are targeting mercilessly and arbitrarily the helpless citizens of this city," the PIL said.
"Simple measures which could have caused the pollution to reduce in the city are better management of traffic and traffic signals and their synchronization, and better road construction technology in Delhi," it said.