Judiciary running a parallel govt: Subhas

KOLKATA, July 21: The state transport minister, Mr Subhas Chakraborty, today criticised the directive of Calcutta High Court on phasing out 15-year-old vehicles to reduce pollution, saying the “judiciary was running a parallel government” in the state. According to him, two years back the court had rejected an initiative by his department to phase out all 25-year-old buses to reduce pollution, but the division bench on Friday had accepted a plea by the environment department to phase out vehicles more than 15-years-old from KMDA area. “I'm happy about the directive. But this is very surprising that there can be two different judgements on the issue. It is their (judges) task to interpret law. How can two judges arrive at two different judgement, on the basis of which law?,” said the minister. While expressing happiness on the judgement Mr Chakraborty questioned the directive on setting up a committee to monitor pollution. “What is the need for an administrative department (transport) when the court is setting up a committee to implement its directive?” the minister replied when asked how the department is going to implement the directive of the Calcutta High Court. Incidentally, the transport minister has been at loggerheads with the environment department over various steps on reining in pollution due to auto emissions. In this case a plea by the environment department had actually led to the curb imposed by the Court and hence the minister's ire. Later, the minister, however, indicated there would not be problems in implementing the directive of the court about phasing out old commercial vehicles.
Statesman News Service
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