Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday asked the TS and Central governments to respond to a PIL seeking to declare as illegal their allowing auto-rickshaws of BS-I and BS-II pollution norms to ply in GHMC limits.
A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice M. Ganga Rao was dealing with the PIL by O. Santha Kumar, a resident of the city, seeking a ban on such auto-rickshaws.
P.V. Krishnaiah, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that allowing BS-I and BS-II auto-rickshaws that were registered till the year 2010 was contrary to various directions given by the Supreme Court in air pollution cases.
When counsel said that the BS-I and BS-II autos were causing pollution in the city, the bench pointed out that it would not be proper to blame the autos alone for the pollution when buses, cars and trucks were contributing to the pollution.
Stating that most of the autos are run by the poor, the bench questioned if they were banned, how would families depending on autos survive. When counsel cited certain orders of the Supreme Court in similar cases, the bench reminded that after the ban on crackers during Diwali, there was a considerable decrease in bursting of crackers and said that awareness was also building up among the people.
The bench directed the Central and state governments to submit a report explaining how many autos were registered till 2010 and the amount of pollution caused by them, and also the number autos registered after 2010 and the pollution caused by them.
The bench adjourned the case for four weeks.
