Delhi HC Raps Civic Bodies, Says They’ve Failed To Keep The Capital Clean

Civic bodies of the national capital have not been able to “keep even one area of the city” completely clean, the Delhi High Court said today (8 November).

"You take one step forward, then four steps back," a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sanjeev Sachdeva told the civic bodies and asked their officials whether they would themselves stay in areas where there is no cleanliness and garbage is littered on the streets.

"Can you stay in a place like this (which lacks cleanliness)? You expect the public to live in such areas," the court asked the officials.

It also said that in 2015, it had asked the civic bodies to identify one area of the city which will be completely cleaned by them, "but you have not been able to do so".

The bench then combined together all the PILs filed relating to cleanliness in the national capital, waterlogging, as well as manual scavenging, and appointed senior advocate A Bhambani and advocate Richa Kapoor as amicus curiae to assist the court in these matters.

It asked the amicus to prepare a tabular chart listing out the orders passed in each of the PILs, the dates and the status of compliance or implementation of the directions.

With these directions, the bench listed the matters for hearing on 21 November. PTI