Taking cognizance of incidents of Delhi Transport Corporation's (DTC) low-floor buses catching fire, the Delhi High Court Wednesday pulled up Tata Motors for providing faulty buses to the government.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar took serious note of the six fire accidents that have occurred in less than a month on the newly acquired low-floor buses.
“We cannot accept this explanation that your (Tata) buses are fine but Delhi's roads are not fit for it. If that was the situation, then why did you (Tata) agree to supply the buses? We are not going to run these buses on foreign land,” the bench observed.
Counsel for DTC submitted that 3,125 buses are to be replaced and Tata Motors have so far supplied only 418 buses.
Counsel for Tata Motors assured the court that another 130 buses have been inspected and approved by the DTC and will be delivered soon.
The court, however, asked the Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland, another company which is providing buses to the government, to file an affidavit by Jan 20 stating as to when the entire consignment of buses would be delivered.
The fire accidents are a setback to the Delhi government's plans of phasing out the privately-owned Blueline buses before the 2010 Commonwealth Games and replacing them with 3,500 low-floor CNG-fuelled buses.
