New Delhi, Nov 22 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the MCD and police to remove the deficiencies and illegal activities going on in Chandni Chowk area and termed it a "shocking state of affairs".
The high court perused the photographs in the area and noted that people are engaging in gambling there while the Delhi Police is not doing anything.
"People are doing gambling there. It seems they are drug addicts there. What are police doing, are they aware of the ground reality. How can people stay there (in public spaces).
"Your (PWD) officers are not doing their job and there is a lot of 'hafta' collection going on there. Police officials don't know anything, it seems the police have become helpless. This gives bad name to police," said a bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela.
The bench said it was of the prima facie view that the deficiencies and illegal activities must be attended to and removed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Police in accordance with the law as expeditiously as possible.
It directed the MCD, Public Works Department (PWD), Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation Limited (SRDC), Delhi Police and Traffic Police to file their status reports within two weeks.
The court also asked the deputy commissioner of police concerned and a senior officer of the PWD to be personally present in the court on the next date of hearing, that is, December 13.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal highlighting the highly neglected, disturbing and pathetic state of affairs in the area of Chandni Chowk Redevelopment Project from Lal Quila Road up to Fateh Puri Masjid and its surrounding areas, including metro stations.
Perusing the photographs placed by the petitioner, the court said "these are shocking state of affairs".
The petitioner sought directions to the city authorities to ensure that all the damage and illegal activities in the area are removed in a time bound manner.
Senior advocate Sanjeev Ralli, appearing for the petitioner organisation, submitted that there was a total failure, neglect and lack of attention on the part of authorities, including the MCD, PWD, Delhi Police and Traffic Police, which keep on shifting their responsibility by blaming each other.
He said till the time the court was monitoring the situation there was no problem but the day when the court closed the petition, it started deteriorating.
"Due to this, huge public money of over Rs 140 crore spent on the redevelopment project was going waste on account of serious deficiencies and damage," the plea said.
The bench said it was unfortunate that beat officials were regularly going on the spot but just for their weekly collection.
"PWD has to make some arrangements. It is not making adequate arrangements for homeless people. Nothing has been done that is why these homeless people are staying here on roads," it said.
The court said that it stopped monitoring for a few months and the situation deteriorated.
The deficiencies mentioned in the petition included damage to the infrastructure, lack of maintenance and hygiene, public spaces occupied by homeless, vagabonds, drug addicts and stray cattle.
It also said there has been illegal and unregulated vending activities and encroachments in the no hawking and no-vending zones and thousands of unregulated rickshaws have been plying on Chandni Chowk road.
The court was earlier dealing with a public interest litigation on the Chandani Chowk redevelopment project.
In 2020, the high court had taken suo motu notice of the "pathetic condition of the area" based on photographs in news reports and directed the high court registry to register a petition in public interest.