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The Supreme Court on Thursday made it clear that it will not modify its earlier order making Compressed Natural Gas mandatory for 10,000-strong city bus fleet, while viewing in poor light Mashelkar report on auto fuel policy.
"You can take it from us that we are not going to recall or modify any of our orders for converting the entire city bus fleet into single fuel CNG mode," a three-judge bench comprising Justice B N Kirpal, Justice V N Khare and Justice Ashok Bhan observed.
In the light of this observation, the Delhi government, which requested the Court to extend the February 28 deadline for conversion of all diesel run buses in the capital, found itself in a piquant situation as the Court refused to pass any order on its application for extension of the deadline.
As the arguments remained inconclusive, the Court merely fixed coming Wednesday for further hearing on the matter.
Referring to the Union government's application for allowing low sulphur diesel-run buses on the city roads, amicus curiae Harish Salve said, "This is the sixth time the Centre is making such a request despite it being categorically rejected earlier."
Salve said he was pressing for imposition of costs on the government in this regard as if a private litigant has made such repeated requests on one ground or the other it would have been viewed as 'abuse of the process'.
Referring to Mashelkar report, Salve contended that the whole approach of the Committee was wrong as the main thrust of the report was that 'you prescribe emission standards and fuel standards and then back off'.
The bench said the emission standards were fixed much before the Court took up the matter, but the vehicular pollution was on the rise posing serious health hazards to the residents of Delhi.
It said, "The concern for public health is so much so that in this committee there was no expert on public health or doctor on the panel nor any analysis had been carried out about the impact of pollution on the environment."
"There are scientific reports which indicate that vehicular pollution accounts for more people every year in Delhi than those killed in the Bhopal gas leak," the bench added.
Salve said as per an estimate in 1998, particulate matter pollution alone accounted for 10,000 lives and added that as per a World Health Organisation estimate in 1995, around 5,000 people die every year in Delhi due to pollution.
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