SC to DDA: Rebuild shelters in 3 days
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Delhi Development Authority to re-build the night shelters razed by it on Tuesday evening within three days. Rebuking the DDA for being callous, the Supreme Court asked the additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran to visit one of the night shelters and get a first-hand account of the conditions there.
A bench, comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma, which had on Wednesday restrained the Delhi government from razing night shelters, directed the DDA to launch a probe into the demolition and identify the officials responsible for it. It asked the DDA to take disciplinary action against the erring officials.
Passing the order, the bench said: “We are greatly anguished, disappointed and astonished as to how could the authorities be so insensitive, impervious and callous when the winter is so intense.” The bench further observed that in a welfare state, it was the duty of the government to ensure that no citizen sleeps under the open sky in such “intense” winter.
On being pointed out by senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, appearing for People’s Union of Civil Liberties, that only 25 of the 64 night shelters built by the Delhi government last year following court’s orders were operational, the court directed Mr Parasaran to visit one of the 64 night shelters and get a first-hand account of the conditions there. Mr Gonsalves also submitted photographs in support of his contention.
The court also came close to hauling the DDA for contempt of court. The DDA had on Wednesday suspended an executive engineer of the eastern division in connection with the demolition of the night shelter on a vacant plot of land near Kalkaji temple.
The DDA had first razed a night shelter near Nehru Place on Friday last week saying that it was encroachment on its land. Subseq-uently, the NGO running the night shelter, shifted it near Kalkaji temple. But the DDA squad arrived there on Tuesday evening and razed the structure without notice.
Incidentally, the NGO had been appointed by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board to run night shelters but apparently there was no communication between the DDA and the city government about it.
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