International School told to pay fine for ferrying students in old school bus

The Bombay High Court on Thursday imposed a fine of Rs30,000, on Ryan International School of Navi Mumbai, for ferrying its students into Mumbai, in a school bus which was over eight years old and not converted to LPG or CNG. The bus entry violated a previous court order banning entry of such vehicles.

Division bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice A Sayyed, directed the school to deposit the amount with the Tardeo RTO and to take the custody of the school bus to remove it from the city limits. A ban on plying such vehicles within the city limits was imposed by an order passed by HC in 2004.

The school bus was detained on January 6. As per the school since it was a Sunday and there was no other bus available and it had to ferry the children to Shanmukhanand hall in Matunga, to attend the International Children’s festival of Performing Arts, the bus entered the city, by mistake.

The flying squad of RTO detained the bus at Sion, at that time there were 54 children and four teachers in it. On inspection it was found out that the bus was registered in the year 2003 and was one year old than eight years and had not converted.  Thus it was detained under various sections of the Motor Vehicle Act.

On request by the school to the authorities it was not released and thus it approached the high court where it pleaded that it was the first mistake and it would not be repeated and the court should take a sympathetic approach.

The bench before releasing the bus directed the school to pay the fine and give undertaking that the bus would never enter city limits.