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The Rediff Business Special/Veeresh Malik

Supreme Court order on Euro norms: Auto industry invests Rs 15 million to hire 100 lawyers

Hectic corporate activity has followed the Supreme Court directives on Euro-unfit cars emissions in the National Capital Region.

The three-judge bench in Court 1, comprising Chief Justice Dr A S Anand, Justices B N Kirpal and V N Khare, delivered a six-page order on May 13. The judgment itself is two pages long.

The petitioner, M C Mehta, assisted by two others, pitted himself against the respondents, the Union of India and others.

The respondents were represented by 113 lawyers -- enough to fill four pages of the six-page order. Prominent among the respondents were:

• Ministry of environment
• Ministry of surface transport
• Ministry of human resources development
• Ministry of petroleum and natural gases
• Delhi administration
• Delhi police
• Central Pollution Control Board
• Delhi Pollution Control Board
• Delhi Development Authority
• Automobile associations
• Hindustan Motors
• Assorted intervenory applicants
• Tata Engineering and Locomotive Limited
• Mercedes Benz
• Fiat
• Mahindra & Mahindra
• Maruti Udyog Limited
• Delhi Transport Corporation
• Toyota-Kirloskar.

Prominent lawyers who defended the above were P Chidambram (the former Union finance minister), K K Venugopal, Kapil Sibal, A M Singhvi, Arun Jaitley, M C Bhandare, G L Sanghi, Lalit Bhasin, K N Rawal (additional solicitor general), P P Rao, Percy Gandhy, Rayan Karanjiwalla.

Some 113 lawyers are involved in the issue. I asked one of them what the total fees and other costs would have been. He did some quick back-of-the-mobile-phone calculations and said, about Rs 15 millon!

When the case was being argued, those present in the court were representatives of Hyundai, Ford, General Motors, Daewoo, Honda, the Hindujas, Ashok Leyland and a few oil companies.

The apex court issued a separate order that 80 filling stations for CNG should come up in and around Delhi.

A wag whispered, in jest, that the Association of Indian Automobile Manufacturers could have held its annual general meeting in the parking lot outside the Supreme Court, had it wanted to, for it was out in full force. An aside: Jayalalitha's case, on at the same time in the hallowed precincts, attracted lesser attention.

The operative part of the Supreme Court order

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