Odd-even scheme to continue till January 15, says Delhi HC

In a major win for the Aam Aadmi Party-led government (AAP), the Delhi High Court on Monday said that it will not interfere with the state government's notification on the odd-even formula and that the scheme is to continue till January 15.

The next hearing over the car rationing scheme is scheduled on February 15.

"The High Court has refused to interfere with the Delhi Government's notification and they have issued a direction of points. The points will have to be considered by the state government. The rationality of the notification was challenged by us," Lawyer RK Kapoor told the reporters here.

However, the Delhi High Court has also directed the state government to take into account the objections raised by all the petitioners against the scheme.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said, though the implementation of the scheme may have caused hardship to a section of society, "power of judicial review cannot be extended to determine correctness of such policy decision".

"Keeping in view that restrictions under notification are only for a limited period of 15 days and it is stated that the scheme has been enforced as a pilot project to ascertain the reduction, if any, of pollution levels, we are of the view that interference by this court is not warranted," it said.

The court also said in its 12-page order, "Implementation may have caused hardship to a section of the society, however, the power of judicial review cannot be extended to determine the correctness of such policy decision or to find out whether there could be more appropriate or better alternatives."

"It's neither within domain of the courts nor the scope of judicial review to embark upon an enquiry as to whether a particular public policy is wise or whether a better public policy can be evolved as suggested by petitioners," the bench added.

It also observed that "law is well settled that on matters affecting policy, courts will not interfere unless the policy is unconstitutional or contrary to statutory provisions or arbitrary or irrational or in abuse of power.

"Since, the policy decisions are taken based on expert knowledge of person concerned, courts are normally not equipped to question the correctness of a policy decision," the bench said.

On January 8, the high court had reserved its order on the pleas challenging the scheme after Delhi government defended its stand on the issue saying per capita toxic gas emission had declined due to lesser number of cars on city roads.

The high court had earlier questioned the impact of the odd-even operation on pollution and asked the AAP government to consider restricting the programme, slated for a fortnight till January 15, to a week.