Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled on December 30 that the registration of schools that do not follow bus policy should be suspended.

While hearing petitions for the mitigation of smog in the city, LHC ordered all private schools to re-register after a month and said that all the registrations of schools that do not follow the bus policy will be suspended.

Justice Shahid Karim heard petitions of citizen Haroon Farooq and others for smog abatement after which he ruled that all schools should re-register after a month. He then sought a traffic plan from the DG Lahore Development Authority for the buses.

Secretary of Schools Education Department Khalid Nazir Watto appeared before the court to state that they have made a policy as per the court’s orders that only those schools that have buses will be registered. To this, Justice Shahid Karim remarked: "You should make rules immediately as the matter of school buses is very serious, and school owners have a lot of money, so do not waste more time on the issue of the environment”.

The court also asked the Secretary of schools if Aitchison falls under the jurisdiction of the Higher Education Department (HEC). To this the court was informed that the mentioned school does come under the HEC. 

Additionally, Justice Shahid directed the Punjab government's lawyer to inform Aitchison School about the issue of buses in order to acknowledge the severity of matters.
He expressed displeasure over the non-compliance with traffic rules at bus stands and housing societies on Multan Road. 

Earlier on November 25, LHC had ruled that schools should provide transport to children after the winter vacations.