The Hindu : New Delhi News : PIL dismissed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 07, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

PIL dismissed

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a direction to the Railway Ministry to bring down the maximum permitted speed limit of all super-fast trains, including Rajdhani, till the condition of the tracks was improved.

Dismissing the petition filed by Vivek Khare, a Pune-based social and political activist, a Division Bench comprising Justice B.C. Patel and Justice S.K. Kaul, however, granted him liberty to file a fresh petition in the matter annexing relevant papers.

Mr. Khare had sought the direction on the basis of a submission made by the Railway Ministry in an affidavit in the High Court earlier in reply to another PIL filed by him in 1997 seeking a CBI inquiry into the purchase of alleged sub-standard 140T cranes by the Railways for carrying out salvage operation in the event of an accident.

In the affidavit, the Railway Ministry had submitted that "due to the limitations of the tracks, the 140T cranes were finally cleared to run at the maximum speed limit of 75 kilometres per hour".

The petitioner submitted that by allowing the super-fast trains to run at speed between 90 and 140 kmph, the Railways had put the lives of the passengers at great risk.

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