Delhi HC Asks Kejriwal Government To Notify Solid Waste Management Bylaws

The Delhi High Court today (15 November) asked the Arvind Krjriwal-led government to comply with its order and notify the solid waste management bylaws, framed on its directions, within two weeks.

The bench was informed by the Delhi government that the bye laws were pending approval of the Lieutenant Governor (LG) for being notified.

"It appears that the 19 September order was not placed before the LG. Perusal of the scheme of solid waste management would show that local authorities were only required to frame the rules which have to be approved by the LG," a bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said.

During the hearing, the Delhi government’s Standing Counsel Sanjay Ghosh urged the court to pass a direction for issuing notification on bylaws and sought time to comply with its earlier order.

The bench said that the notified bylaws be placed before the court in two weeks and listed the matter on 5 December.

The Delhi government had earlier also told the high court that the solid waste management bylaws were pending approval of the LG for being notified after which the bench had listed the matter for today.

The high court had on 19 September accepted the draft bylaws, framed jointly by local authorities and environmental experts, which called for introduction of user fees for municipal services among other issues.

Besides introduction of user fee for municipal services, the bylaws also provide for enforcing segregation of waste at source such as in the households and housing societies, strengthening of waste collection, storage, transportation and processing systems and imposing of penalties for littering or violating the rules.

Under the bylaws, the fees and penalties will see a five per cent increase every year.

The court had ordered framing of the draft bylaws after environmental experts like Sunita Narain, Almitra Patel and M C Mehta, had claimed that a major challenge faced in solid waste management was lack of such provisions.

The court was looking into the issue of solid waste management as it was of the view that garbage and lack of cleanliness contributed to spread of vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

The view was expressed by the court during the hearing of two Public Interest Litigations (PILs) by lawyers Arpit Bhargava and Gauri Grover who had sought directions to municipal bodies and other authorities to take steps to prevent the spread of dengue, chikungunya and malaria. PTI