Delhi HC dismisses plea for scrapping BRT corridor

A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Manmohan Singh dismissed the petition filed by an NGO, Nyaya Bhoomi, which had alleged that the BRT was aimed at harassing commuters and was a "complete wastage" of the public money.

"It cannot be said that implementation of BRT corridor in the city of Delhi is an irrational decision," the bench said.

The bench had reserved its order on September 24 after hearing arguments from Nyaya Bhoomi and the city government.

B B Sharan of NGO Nyaya Bhoomi, in his arguments, had referred to a survey report of Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) on functioning of the BRT and the Delhi Master Plan to argue that a dedicated BRT corridor cannot be created on narrow roads as it would hardly leave any space for other vehicles.

An other NGO favouring the BRT, however, had submitted that "unless they (car users) are punished, they will not shift to public transport system."

The Delhi government had earlier rejected the CRRI report criticising the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor and said that it was "unconstitutional" and "irrational" as it has ignored the rights of common commuters.

The government had said the CRRI has violated the concept of equality guaranteed under the Constitution by considering the problems of car users but not the bus users.

"It is a completely irrational approach. Their concern is car users but not the bus users. For them, a poor person is not entitled to travel fast.

"The value of time for poor is less important for them. Bus users are non persons to them as they have not taken the opinion of the bus users while conducting the trial run for mixed vehicles on the corridor," the government had said before the court.