The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to examine the plea for banning diesel cars from plying on Delhi’s road to tackle growing
menace of pollution in the national capital.

A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur will decide on next Tuesday whether
there should be a complete ban on diesel vehicle or should there should be
restriction on number of diesel vehicle in the city.

The bench, however, favoured to impose complete ban on trucks passing through
Delhi.

Referring to even-odd formula taken by the Delhi government, the bench said there can’t be a single solution to this problem and there has to be
multi-pronged approach to defuse the crisis.

“This is very serious issue and we are earning a bad name in world for Delhi being most polluted city,” the bench said.

While calling for a multi-pronged policy, the bench asked municipal bodies in Delhi to be ready with an alternate arrangement to collect toll and
environment compensation charge (ECC) as the existing contractor - SMYR Consortium Ltd. had expressed difficulties in discharging the additional
responsibility of collecting ECC.

The court asked the government to provide a platform where all stakeholders including municipal bodies, the Delhi government, Central Pollution Control Board and others could come together for
formulating short-term, medium-term and log-term policies to address the issue.

Asking all the parties to give their suggestions, the court directed further hearing of the matter on
Tuesday.