A bench comprising Justices A.S. Anand, B.N. Kirpal and V.J. Khare, however, directed that commercial vehicles over 20 years old would be banned in Delhi from October 2, adding that no 17-year-old commercial vehicle would ply in the city from November 15.

The bench stated that this order would also apply to all vehicles entering Delhi from other states and directed the transport department and the Delhi Traffic Police to implement it. The bench also asked the chief secretary of the Delhi administration, the transport department and the police to file affidavits in October, November and January next year stating compliance of the court's order.

With this order, 9,349 commercial vehicles over 20 years old would stop plying in Delhi from October 2, 3,200 commercial vehicles over 17 years old would be off the road from November 15 and 4,962 commercial vehicles over 15 years old would be banned from December 31. The bench stated that the deadline relaxation was given as Solicitor General Santosh Hegde said that the vehicle owners might face difficulty in switching over to new vehicles, which required a huge investment.

Hegde said the court ``may allow the owners of these old vehicles to bring the emission to permissible levels by changing the engines''. The bench, however, said that with regard to vehicles over 15 years old, there was no question of allowing owners to change the engines. It added that if the government had any suggestions to make with respect to other vehicles, these could be given to the high-level committee headed by Bhure Lal for consideration.

The bench also sought the government's reaction on the steps it intended to take if the court passed a direction to bring the pollution to permissible levels in Delhi by April 1999. It stated that there were enough laws to achieve this goal but there was a lack of will on the part of the government.

Hegde said that there had been a perceptible change in the pollution level after the court had started monitoring pollution-related matters. The bench said,``The government was taking the things very casually. When we started monitoring, we thought we will wake you (government) up so that you will get on with the task. But like a naughty child you go to sleep again and again''.