The Hyderabad High Court directed the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Saturday, to spell out their stand on a petition, that questioned the longer vehicles of private bus operators, that were designed to accommodate a lot of people.
The Times of India reported that Varahala Naidu of Vijayawada APSRTC filed the plea, stating that this made buses more accident-prone, and stated that they violated the Motor Vehicles Act.
The petitioner's counsel described these sleeper coach buses as `moving coffins' and sought a blanket ban on them, the TOI report added.
Last month, the Arunachal Pradesh government cancelled the permit of all buses that were registered with them, but not operating in their state.
This move directly affected around 900 buses that operated in the Telugu states, but registered in Arunachal Pradesh, as it was cheaper.
An investigation on this began around two months ago, after Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas, also known as Nani, closed down the offices of Kesineni Travels, one of south India's largest private travel agencies.
Stating that many in the Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Authority (RTA) were corrupt, the MP downed the shutters in 'protest' of officials keeping mum on illegal registrations and issuance of fake fitness certificates.
Following this, the Private AP State Contract Carriage Bus Owners' Association protested against the move.
“We are paying close to Rs 1.35 lakh as quarterly inter-state tax. When the government knew that our buses are registered in other states, why did they collect the tax from us all these years? Only to exact revenge on us, (Kesineni) Nani brought pressure on the officials of Arunachal Pradesh to cancel their bus permits," the association's vice-president M Sunil Kumar Reddy had alleged.