The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan on a public interest litigation accusing them of taking no action against trucks that resort to overloading.
A Bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice P P Naolekar issued the notices after hearing counsel Rajeev Singh for petitioner Prem Kumar Chaudhury, who alleged that the authorities turned a blind eye to the overloaded trucks, as they had taken special tokens issued by these states.
The petitioner alleged that the three state governments were vigorously pursuing the scheme of special tokens/golden cards in the name of revenue generation and did not impound the trucks that avail the scheme.
"A serious threat to public life and health is being posed by the continuing offence of overloading of commercial vehicles without any prosecution and imposition of fine upon the offending transporters," the petitioner said.
"In the garb of special token/special agreement/golden card, the state governments are allowing the offender transporters to commit breach of law on one hand and cause damage to the public roads, make pollution by excessive emission of polluting substances and create danger to public life and traffic hazard," it said.