Morning walkers starting their day with a stroll in the Victoria Memorial lawns have been granted two hours of car parking time by the Supreme Court.

The apex court on Tuesday accepted a plea that had been rejected by the high court, which clamped a ban on parking near Victoria Memorial in 2007 after studies showed that vehicular emission was damaging Calcutta’s most famous monument.

“Visitors to the Victoria Memorial can now park their vehicles from 6am to 8am in the north-south zone of the monument,” said Sitaram Sharma, a spokesperson for Friends of Victoria Memorial, which had moved the petition.

The high court had turned down the organisation’s plea on February 2 last year.

Lawyer Soli J. Sorabjee, who represented the petitioner in the apex court, said the high court’s refusal to allow vehicles to be parked in the vicinity of the Memorial for a couple of hours early in the morning had affected mostly senior citizens.

“Isn’t it something that the high court should have looked into?” he wondered.

Friends of Victoria Memorial argued that the no-parking rule might have actually increased the level of pollution because vehicles owned by morning walkers were making two trips instead of one, once to drop them and again to take them home. “We welcome the court order,” smiled Sharma.

The organisation estimated that the number of people parking their cars in the vicinity of the monument between 6am and 8am would not be more than 100 on weekdays and 150 on weekends.