Plea against AAP's odd-even car formula to check air pollution will be heard in the high court tomorrow. (Press Trust of India photo)
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)
government's anti-pollution plan of allowing odd or even numbered cars on alternate days in Delhi has been challenged in Delhi High Court.
Shweta Kapoor, a lawyer, has said in her petition that "imposition of such a policy/law would be contrary to public interest and has been imposed without any public debate or discussion and without understanding the situation and facts and circumstances in India".
The government, she says, has "failed to check the main cause of concern of pollution in Delhi and is targeting mercilessly and arbitrarily the helpless citizens of this city."
The court will hear the petition tomorrow.
The Delhi government has said that from January 1, odd-numbered vehicles will be allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and even-numbered cars on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The system will not apply to public and commercial vehicles. The announcement came days after the high court
compared the city to a gas chamber.
Confronting criticism over lack of planning, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that the
formula will be tested for 15 days and will be scrapped if it is hard on citizens.
The petition questions whether the AAP government has the power to modify vehicular movement in the national capital.
Describing Delhi's public transport system as "undeveloped and unsafe", the petitioner has said that it would create problems for women who travel alone as well as differently-abled persons who use modified vehicles to commute.
Ms Kapoor also argues that "curtailing the constitutional rights of citizens by following unreasonable and arbitrary measures" will only "add to the chaos and not actually uproot the actual causes of pollution from the city which include dust, entry of trucks inside the city and traditional ways of waste disposal".
She said the government has not paid any attention to dust from construction sites and has focused only "on a limited question of private vehicular pollution".
The petition says: "Simple measures which could have caused the pollution to reduce in the city are better management of traffic and traffic signals and their synchronization, and better road construction technology in Delhi."