
Delhi, your old cars might just be safe. Here's what Supreme Court has said
On July 8, it announced that the fuel ban would instead be enforced from November 1 across Delhi and five NCR districts, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Sonipat, to ensure uniform application.Court challenge and fresh argumentsOn July 27, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a plea from the Delhi government seeking a review of its 2018 order. The petition argued that a blanket age-based ban is outdated, pointing to Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) emission norms introduced in April 2020, which cut particulate matter emissions by up to 80% and nitrogen oxides by 70% compared to BS IV vehicles.Appearing for the Delhi government today, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the rule was 'arbitrary,' noting that a lightly used private car could be forced off the road after a decade, while a high-mileage commercial taxi might continue operating until it hits the age cap."Earlier, one used to use cars for 40-50 years. Now still vintage cars are there." the apex court said. The bench further said it would not make a final decision without hearing all parties but, in the interim, directed that no punitive measures be taken against owners of affected vehicles.The Delhi government also pointed out that the 2018 ban has created significant practical difficulties for many residents who own vehicles that still meet pollution control standards.advertisementWith the next hearing due in a month, Delhi's older cars, once marked for the scrapyard, remain on the roads, at least for now.Subscribe to Auto Today Magazine- Ends
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Time of India
23 minutes ago
- Time of India
Supreme Court clarifies Blenders Pride has no exclusive right over 'Pride': Law expert
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Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
SC upholds Kerala High Court order suspending toll collection for 4 weeks on Ernakulum-Mannuthy highway
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the Kerala High Court's order suspending toll collection for four weeks on the 65-km Ernakulam-Mannuthy stretch of National Highway 544, observing that road users cannot be compelled to pay a fee when access is blocked due to traffic jams, disrepair and bottlenecks. The top court's judgment will likely set a precedent for other highways that are in bad condition. 'We are clear in our minds that there is no cause for interference to the interim order and we are convinced not only that the High Court order be sustained, but the division bench also be requested to monitor the situation to ensure ease of traffic,' the Supreme Court said in its order. A bench led by Justices BR Gavai and K Vinod Chandran, while hearing separate appeals filed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Guruvayur Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (GIPL), the project concessionaire, noted that the plight of citizens stood at the heart of the issue. The project concessionaire is the company that has been granted the right to operate a business on someone else's property, often by a government or another business. 'The obligation of the public to pay a user fee under statutory provisions is premised on the assurance that their use of the road will be free from hindrances. When the public is legally bound to pay a user fee, they simultaneously acquire a corresponding right to demand unhindered, safe, and regulated access,' the court held in its 10-page order. In July, the Kerala High Court had ordered the suspension of tolls from 6 August to 3 September on the busy highway corridor, citing recurring traffic snarls, poor service roads and prolonged construction at several 'black spots.' The court also directed immediate repair work and asked the authorities to resolve the gridlock. The stretch subjected to toll starts from Ernakulam and ends at Mannuthy, going through the districts of Ernakulam and Thrissur. The order came after repeated directions to the NHAI and the concessionaire failed to improve conditions. At one point, traffic was stalled for almost 12 hours along the stretch, severely inconveniencing commuters. Tushar Mehta, the solicitor-general appearing for NHAI, argued that the congestion was confined to four 'black spots'—Amballur, Perambra, Muringur and Chirangara—where underpasses and flyovers are under construction. The main carriageway, he said, remained smooth. 'Minor hardships are for the larger good of the citizens,' he said, urging the court not to impose a blanket suspension of toll collection. Shyam Divan, senior counsel representing GIPL, submitted that the company was losing almost ₹ 49 lakh per day due to the toll suspension. He stressed that toll revenue was essential to meet ongoing maintenance obligations and argued that the High Court had wrongly interfered in contractual matters under Article 226 of the Constitution. The concessionaire also pointed out that NHAI had entrusted the disputed construction work to another contractor, who was not made a party in the case. Rejecting these submissions, the Supreme Court observed that both NHAI and the concessionaire had overlooked the 'citizen-centric approach' taken by the High Court. 'The toll is really on the purse and the patience of the citizen, as also the environment,' the bench remarked, highlighting how commuters were forced to idle in long queues, wasting fuel and worsening pollution. The court also took note of the fact that while the concessionaire was responsible for maintaining the main carriageway, the service road construction was given to another contractor, PST Engineering and Constructions. The bench directed the Kerala High Court to implead the contractor and monitor the repair work to ensure smoother traffic flow. The top court clarified that the High Court's observation about concessionaire losses being recoverable from NHAI was not an absolute finding of liability but left open to determination in appropriate proceedings. It, however, stood firm that toll suspension must remain in force until traffic eased. 'The minute smooth traffic is resumed, the NHAI or the concessionaire would be entitled to pray for lifting the prohibitory order, even before the four weeks as ordered by the High Court,' the bench noted. "Let the citizens be free to move on the roads, for use of which they have already paid taxes, without further payment to navigate the gutters and potholes, symbols of inefficiency."


Mint
3 hours ago
- Mint
Regulate gaming by all means, but drop the plan to ban ‘real-money games'
The move to regulate online gaming makes sense, but the proposal to ban any game with a monetary dimension is a total mistake. For one, it violates personal liberty and the freedom to pursue a trade or profession of one's choice. The proposed central law would encroach on states' rights as well. It would also set back India's burgeoning gaming industry, which has a minuscule share of the $3 trillion global gaming market. If accepted, the government's justification for the move – protecting vulnerable individuals from the harmful effects of the activity it proposes to ban – could lead to serious constrictions of personal freedom and endanger a range of businesses from distilleries and motorsports to fast food outlets and sweet shops. The efficacy of such as ban is itself a matter of debate. Even in China, with its 'Great Firewall' and strict online censorship, savvy online users can get around restrictions to access the content they want. In India, where the political system and people's values abhor the idea of the 'thought police', the only effect of banning some types of online gaming will be to drive it underground and funnel Indian gaming business to foreign entities that are wholly beyond the remit of the Indian state for taxation or quality control. Call it what it is In its traditional sense the word 'gaming' means 'gambling', as exemplified by the term 'gaming house'. This is true of both legal pronouncements over the decades and the lexicons of those above a certain age who lack direct personal exposure to video games, a significant and growing genre of entertainment worldwide. Incidentally, it was in the pursuit of improving video game graphics that Nvidia developed the parallel-processing chips that power the artificial intelligence models of today. Yes, there could be games so insidious that they justify the proposed ban for reasons of addiction, obscenity and the potential to cause mental illness. But this applies not just to games but to the videos and shows that people mindlessly binge on TV and streaming platforms as well. The bill also stands in a legal vacuum. It carefully refrains from using the term gambling, because regulating gambling is the responsibility of the states and not the union government. The centre's ability to legislate on real-money games depends on the games in question being distinct and removed from gambling. If the online games that involve money are not a form of gambling, what is the government's objection to such games? Since gambling is formally illegal in India, all extant online games that involve money are necessarily games predominantly of skill rather than chance. And these are perfectly legal, both for the entities that host the games for a fee and for those who play them. Any number of Supreme Court and high court rulings make this clear. (Incidentally, buying and selling futures and options in the stock market without any clue as to how an option should be priced is nothing but gambling, but is deemed perfectly legal.) Why Article 47 justification is problematic To justify a ban, the proposed bill cites Article 47 of the Constitution and the duty of the state to raise the level of nutrition and improve the standard of living and public health. If Article 47 does in fact prick the government's conscience, shouldn't its first instinct be to rein in lynch mobs, increase the capacity of suburban trains to prevent deaths on tracks, and fix the potholes that turn Indian roads into lunar landscapes every monsoon, rather than ban an infant industry with global potential and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process? If Article 47 is accepted as the rationale to proscribe gaming, what prevents it from being used to ban drinking, smoking, risky sports, fast food, or for that matter anything else deemed unhealthy? Gaming can be regulated. The best system of regulation is self-regulation that abides by government guidelines. The government says it wants to reduce the number of laws that constrain how people live. The current proposal directly contradicts this. The government should therefore drop the move to ban what it calls 'real-money gaming' and instead focus on getting the contours of healthy regulation right. In countries that allow gambling, including online gambling, the rules often mandate measures to discourage excesses and addiction.