Allowing mosquitoes to breed leading to spread of vector-borne diseases like dengue is equivalent to penal offences like culpable homicide and rash driving, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday told the three municipal corporations here and said “heads must roll” for this.
Mosquito breeding
“Should it not be tested on the lines of culpable homicide not amounting to murder or rash and negligent driving,” the court asked the civic bodies, referring to their officials not doing enough to check mosquito breeding. Ordering that disciplinary action be taken against the municipal officials who did not discharge their duty of ensuring cleanliness in their respective areas, a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar said the civic bodies have “failed pathetically”.
“Instructions have not been followed, so some heads must roll. Come back with the action taken against officials and not the poor safai karamchaaris,” the Bench said and directed that commissioners of all three corporations be present before it on the next date of hearing on June 27.
The court told the three corporations, represented by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, to first put their “house in order” and ensure their officials are working before pointing fingers at other causes and agencies for the lack of solid waste management and disposal.
The strong words came after the ASG said the civic bodies and other agencies needed to work together in an integrated manner to handle the problem.
Five-year plan
The Bench told the ASG that what was being submitted appeared to be an “excellent Five-Year Plan” over which “a lot of chai and samosas would be exchanged”, but it was being proposed under the premise that civic body staff was working. “Is your staff doing its job or not? First address that and set it right. If you are in disarray, then no point in looking at others. First set your house in order,” Justice Shankar said.
The observations and directions came after a journalist filed videos showing lack of garbage removal, waterlogged filthy roads and clogged drains in several colonies in the Capital.
The journalist had been appointed by the court as local commissioner while dealing with two PILs by lawyers Arpit Bhargava and Gauri Grover, seeking directions to the corporations to prevent spread of vector-borne diseases which, as per a Health Ministry finding, is also due to lack of solid waste disposal. The Bench said it was “pained” by what it saw in the videos, especially where the municipal cleaning staff were clearing solid waste from drains by hand and added that it was a violation of the law prohibiting manual scavenging apart from “jeopardising” their health.
False reports
“This is the 21st century and gutters in Delhi are being cleaned by hand,” the Bench said. The garbage accumulated over several days in various colonies and on roadsides also irked the court, which said after heavy rain the situation in these areas would get worse. The bodies also invited the wrath of the Bench for filing “fancy 100-page false status reports” projecting the situation in their respective areas as “hunky-dory”.
Rejecting the reports which claimed that regular cleaning was being undertaken and there was complete sanitation in entire east Delhi, the court said the civic bodies have “pathetically failed” to discharge their functions.
