Delhi High Court: A Division Bench of Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad, JJ., directed GNCTD, Transport Department to provide relief assistance to the eligible non-chip PSV Badge holders within 10 days.
The present Public Interest Litigation was filed to seek directions to respondent 4/ Department of Transport, Govt of NCT of Delhi, to provide a onetime financial benefit of Rs 5,000 to lifetime PSV badge holders.
It was alleged by petitioner that, as the announcement was made by the Chief Minister of Delhi with regard to the relief assistance package to auto rickshaw, e-rickshaw and Gramin sewa vehicle drivers, as a compensation for the loss that they would suffer on account of the lockdown in view of COVID-19, the said relief was not received by PSV badge holders who were facing great hardship being unable to ply their vehicles.
Further it alleged that Transport Department was discriminating between PSV badge holders who had chip fixed in their badges vis-a-vis PSV badge holders who did not have the chip.
Transport Department submitted for the above that, it is giving financial assistance of Rs 5,000 to every PSV badge holder irrespective of whether the said badge is with or without a chip.
Department stated that it had made a software separately for chip based badges and non-chip based badges and applicants have been told to apply for receiving assistance of Rs 1,000 in terms of the format prepared in this regard.
Since the 2010 data was non-chip based smart card and was unavailable in the software of the Department, it had to be matched through a separate process initiated by the IT Wing of the Transport Department and now, all the eligible applicants have been identified.
Further the department submitted that out of 11780 non chip PSV badge holders, 4835 have been provided with the relief assistance.
Bench while giving the last opportunity to Transport Department granted 10 days time for the assistance to be released to the non-chip PSV Badge Holders, as enough time has been taken by the department. [Nayee Soch Society v. Ministry of Home Affairs, 2020 SCC OnLine Del 617 , decided on 29-05-2020]
