Delhi High Court today disposed of a plea challenging AAP government's decision asking private unaided schools to lend buses for augmenting public transport to handle greater passenger burden due to the odd-even scheme, noting the road-rationing experiment would end tomorrow.
"The legal issue raised by the petitioner can be dealt later if required," Justice Manmohan orally observed as the counsel for the schools submitted that the Arvind Kejriwal government had issued the direction "without any legal basis".
The counsel said there was no provision under the law which authorised the Delhi government to take control of private property of these schools without the consent of their managements.
When advocate Pramod Gupta said in future also the schools could be compelled to surrender their buses, Delhi government's senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra said the experiment was coming to an end tomorrow and there was no plan to extend the odd-even scheme beyond January 15. He wanted the petition to be treated as infructuous.
Taking note of the government's submission, the court agreed to close the hearing and disposed of the petition.
The Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools had challenged Directorate of Educations orders of December 18, 2015, and December 21, 2015, by which the schools were directed to give their buses with drivers and cleaners to the authorities for using their services to cope with increased burden on public transport.
DoE had also directed the schools on December 21 last year to get registered their buses over the next two days, the association said.
The Delhi government had directed all city schools to shut from January 1 to 15 during the trial period of its odd-even formula.
The plea said there was no provision under the law that authorised the Delhi government to take control of property of these schools without their consent for government or public use and said doing this violated their Constitutional rights.
"The act of the DoE to make the schools sign on the dotted line and ask them to sign the standard agreement of DTC for the school buses is completely autocratic," it said.
