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PETITIONER: M.C. MEHTA

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

DATE OF JUDGMENT:       28/07/1998

BENCH: A.S. ANAND, B.N. KIRPAL, V.N. KHARE

ACT:

HEADNOTE:

JUDGMENT:                  THE 28TH DAY OF JULY, 1998 Present:                 Hon’ble Dr.Justice A.S.Anand                 Hon’ble Mr. Justice B.N.Kirpal                 Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.N.Khare Altaf Ahmed,  Additional Solicitor  General, Harish N.Salve, Sr. Adv. (A.C.), P.P. Malhotra, Shanti Bhushan, K.Parasaran, Sr.Advs., Uday  Umesh Lalit,  Manoj Prasad,  Kailash Vasdev, Mrs. Indira Sawhney, Arvind K.Sharma, Mrs. Anubha Jain, Mrs. K.P. Mittal, Mrs. Niranjana Singh, Wasim A.Quadri, Mrs. anil Katiyar, Ms.Sumitha  Inna, D.S.Mehra, Pramod B.Agarwala, Ms. Praveena Gautam,  Aruneshwar Gupta,  Srilok Nath  Rath, Shri Narian, Sandeep Narain, Sushil Kumar Jain, A.P. Dhamija, Ms. Kiran, Ms.  Arpita Roy  choudhary, (M.A.  Chinnaswamy,) Adv. (NP),  R.P.  Gupta,  R.  Sasiprabhu,  R.K.Maheshwari,  Ashok Mathur, Ranjit  Kumar, Ejaz  Maqbool, Hardeep  Singh  Anand, Vijay Panjwani,  Anis Ahmed Khan, L.K.Pandey, S.B. Upadhyay, S.R. Setia,  Sanjay Parikh,  Mahabir Singh  and Dinesh Kumar Garg, Advs. with them for the appearing parties.                          O R D E R      The following Order of the Court was delivered:                             WITH                WRIT PETITION NO. 939 OF 1996      Realising the  urgency and importance of protection and improvement  of   the  environment,  this  Court  has  given direction  from   time  to   time  and  impressed  upon  the authorities to take urgent steps to tackle the acute problem to vehicular  pollution in  Delhi. Assurances have been held out to  the Court  through various  affidavits filed  by the competent officers  that effective steps shall be taken in a phased manner  within a  specified time span. Inspite of the matter having engaged the attention of this Court for a long time and  lengthy debates  on each  hearing, precious little appear to  have been  done by  the State  Administration  to check and  control the  vehicular pollution.  We are  rather distressed at  this apathy of the State Administration, when according to  the White Paper published by the Government of India, the  vehicular pollution  contributes 70%  of the air pollution as  compared to  20% in  1970. In  the White Paper published by  the Government  of India,  a dead  line of 1st

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April, 1998  had been  proposed for  implementation of major actions. No  concrete steps  have however,  been taken  till date in  spite of  the assurances  held out in the affidavit dated November 18, 1996.      We find  from the  report submitted  by  the  Authority appointed vide Gazette Notification dated 29th January, 1998 that none  of the  major  actions,  as  proposed,  has  been implemented. The Authority headed by Shri Bhure Lal has also proposed certain  measures for  immediate improvement of air quality and has given a time frame but for the time being we are not  engaging our  attention to that time frame. We are, however, of the view that to arrest the growing pollution of air  certain   steps  need   to  be  taken  immediately  We, therefore, direct:-      1. Implementation  of directions  to restrict plying of      commercial vehicles including taxis, which are 15 years      old, by 2nd October, 1998.      2. Restriction  on plying  of goods vehicles during the      day time  shall be  strictly enforced  by 15th  August,      1998.      3. Expansion of pre-mixed oil dispensors (petrol and 2T      oil) shall be undertaken by 31st December, 1998.      4. Ban  on supply  of loose  2T oils at petrol stations      and service garages shall be enforced by 31st December,      1998.      The  Committee  headed  by  Shri  Bhure  Lal  has  also proposed the following measures within the time frame in its action taken report filed in the Court.                                                 Time frame A) Augmentation of public transport (state      1.4.2001    carriage) to 10,000 buses. B) Elimination of leaded petrol from NCT Delhi  1.9.1998    as proposed by the Authority and agreed to by    the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas. C) Supply of only pre-mix petrol in all petrol  31.12.2000    filling stations to two-stroke engine vehicles. D) Replacement of all pre 1990 autos and taxis  31.3.2000    with new vehicles on clean fuels. E) Financial incentives for replacement of all  31.3.2001    post 1990 autos and taxis with new vehicles on    clean fuels. F) Non 8-year old buses to ply except on CNG or  1.4.2000    other clean fuels. G) Entire city bus fleet (DTC & private) to be   31.3.2001    steadily converted to singly fuel mode on CNG. H) New ISBTs to be built at entry points in North  31.3.2000 I) GAIL to expedite and expand from 9 to 80 CNG   31.3.2000    supply outlets. J) Two independent fuel testing labs. to be       1.6.1999    established. K) Automated inspection and maintenance           Immediate    facilities to be set up for commercial vehicles    in the first phase. L) Comprehensive I/M programme to be started by  31.3.2000    by transport department & private sector. M) CPCB/DPCC to set up new stations and strengthen  1.4.2000    existing air quality monitoring stations for    critical pollutants.      We approve  the directions  given and  the  time  frame fixed by  Shri Bhure Lal Committee. The time frame, as fixed by that  committee and  today by this Court, in consultation with learned  counsel for  the parties,  shall  be  strictly adhered to  by all  the  authorities  who  shall  also  take effective and  adequate steps to bring, to the notice of the public both  through  print  and  electronic  media  various

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directions issued by this Court from time to time in general and the  directions  hereinabove  contained  in  particular. Report in  this behalf  shall be  filed in  the Court within four  weeks.   We,  administer,  a  strong  caution  to  all concerned that  failure to  abide by  any of  the directions hereinabove noticed  would invite  action under the Contempt of Courts Act against the defaulters.