The Karnataka High Court on Monday directed the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to take action against contractors by invoking the terms and conditions of the contracts for poor quality of laying and repairing of roads, and use the amount recovered from them for public needs.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar issued the direction after a counsel, representing a PIL petition related to poor condition of roads, pointed out that private contractors too are responsible and the BBMP should initiate action against them for poor execution of works.
Observing prima facie merit in the contention, the bench said that the BBMP should invoke terms of contracts in case of default by contractors.
1,337 potholes remain
Meanwhile, the BBMP on Monday submitted a report to the court stating that it had identified 10,656 potholes between October 1, 2019 and November 8, 2019, and has repaired 9,319 potholes in different zones as of November 8.
As many as 1,337 potholes are yet to be attended to as work could not be completed due to heavy rain, the BBMP stated while assuring the court that the remaining potholes would be repaired by the end of November. Also, the BBMP’s zonal engineers have certified that there are no potholes on major arterial and sub-arterial roads.
Contempt action
On BBMP’s failure to comply with the court’s earlier directions for giving wide publicity on its finding that citizens can approach the civic body seeking reasonable compensation for loss or damage due to bad roads, the bench asked the BBMP to file an affidavit to show cause why action under Contempt of Courts Act should not be initiated against the officers concerned.
“All that the court recorded is the existence of the right of the citizens to claim compensation and expected BBMP to act fairly and, in a genuine case, to grant compensation. However, we find there is consistent defiance by BBMP of the said order,” the bench said.
