Supreme Court modifies its March 6 order staying master plan changes

New Delhi: There is pollution and garbage and no water to drink. Where is Delhi going?

The question was on Tuesday posed by the Supreme Court as it partly modified its March 6 order staying further progress in amending the Master Plan of Delhi-2021, while asking the Centre to give a window of 15 days for inviting objections to the proposed changes.

It asked the Centre to consider the objections to the proposed amendments to the Master Plan of Delhi (MPD) and take a final call after considering all the aspects.

A bench comprising Justices Madan B. Lokur and Navin Sinha also asked the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to advertise in leading dailies on three consecutive days the action plan placed before it for monitoring of all construction activities and fixing responsibility in cases of violation of MPD and the building bylaws.

During the hearing which lasted about two hours, the bench sought to know from attorney-general K.K. Venugopal, who appeared for the DDA, whether the government officials would be placed under suspension if they failed to perform their duty and unauthorised constructions come up in areas under their jurisdiction.

The A-G sought some time to take instruction on the issue after which the court posted the matter for hearing on May 17.

Mr Venugopal placed the action plan before the bench and said strong action would be taken if it was found that unauthorised constructions have come up in an area due to connivance of public servants.

At this, the bench observed, “There is a garbage dump of around 68 metres high and you are not able to do anything about it. Wherever you want to take the garbage, people are objecting. The situation is irreversible. There is no water, so people cannot drink water. There is pollution, so people cannot breath and there is garbage. Where is the city going?”

Mr Venugopal, while referring to the action plan, said the authorities were taking steps on “war footing” to deal with the situation and a “tight system” would be put in place.

He said an interactive website along with a smart phone application would be launched by the special task force (STF), set up to oversee the enforcement of laws on unauthorised constructions in Delhi, to facilitate the public to register their complaints on the unauthorised construction being carried out. The bench told the A-G that the mobile phone application should be made operational within 15 days

Mr Venugopal referred to corruption in DDA and said the action plan aimed at curbing it and the persons responsible in the department would be held accountable for any unauthorised construction in their respective areas.

“Will you suspend such officials immediately? This does not take us anywhere. One can understand if you say that the official would be suspended immediately but you are not saying that,” the bench asked, adding, “if you are presuming that the official is in connivance, the least you can do is to suspend the official”.