Samarthya Gupta, a class V student of Bal Bharati Public School, Pusa Road, was killed after his head hit a roadside tree when he stuck his head out through the window of the bus yesterday. The bus driver, conductor and the depot manager of the DTC have been suspended. G S Cheema, Chairman and Managing Director, DTC said: ``We will be undertaking immediate checking of our school buses and will withdraw all those buses which are not up to the mark. We have also asked school principals and headmasters to give the depot managers and regional managers the registration numbers of all those vehicles that do not meet the stipulations set up by the Supreme Court.''

Meanwhile, Transport Minister Parvez Hashmi said: ``The Chief Minister and I will carry out surprise inspection on Monday and if we find anything lacking in any DTC bus, action will be initiated against the DTC chairman and not the lower staff.'' Last year, the Delhi Government had amended the Delhi Motor Vehicles Rules according to the directions given by the Supreme Court. In order to make school buses safer, window railings and doors had been made mandatory. The rules also stipulated that the record of drivers and conductors operating school buses should be checked.

Cheema said that every time they withdraw buses that do not meet the stipulated requirements, there was a lot of pressure from the schools and they had to press DTC buses into service even if they had deficiencies. Echoing the statement, Abhijit Sarkar, secretary, State Transport Authority (STA) said that schools were equally responsible.

``Time and again we have told the schools to ensure that they use only those buses which meet all the requirements stipulated by the Supreme Court. We have an enforcement wing and we have been carrying out regular checks along with the traffic department officials. However, school authorities should also cooperate and ensure that the conductors are properly trained and there are teachers and bus monitors on board''.

However, principals of several schools, said that they do not use DTC buses as they left a lot to be desired.

Indu Pillay, principal, Mothers International, Aurobindo Marg, said: ``We stopped using the DTC buses long ago, mainly because they don't satisfy our needs. These buses don't have proper doors or windows and they are much more expensive to hire than the contract buses''.

She added that the school had signed a contract with the present bus operator only after they ensured that the bus met the Supreme Court requirements.