Municipal laws are being broken with impunity: SC
There are people in Delhi who are violating the laws with impunity. Look at Bawana and Mumbai also. So human life does not seem to have great value.
THE SUPREME COURT
NEW DELHI: Human life does not seem to have great value, the Supreme Court said on Friday referring to the outbreak of fire in a factory in Bawana while pulling up the civic authorities in Delhi for failing to penalise those violating municipal laws.
A bench headed by Justice MB Lokur also recalled the fire that ripped apart and killed 15 persons in Mumbai’s upscale Kamla Mills. “There are people in Delhi who are violating the laws with impunity. Look at Bawana and Mumbai also. So human life does not seem to have great value,” the bench said while hearing a plea related to sealing of commercial premises on the orders of the monitoring committee appointed by the court.
South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (SDMC) area where the committee has sealed several illegal premises was pulled up by the bench. “Laws are being violated in South Delhi. What are you doing?”, the court asked the SDMC counsel who claimed “nothing was illegal.”
This annoyed the court, which said: “So you mean all is legal?” To this the lawyer replied that the corporation was taking action. He sought to file a detailed affidavit when the bench quizzed him about the hotels and motels located on MG road.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for marble godowns in Chattarpur, accused the monitoring committee of adopting an “unfair” procedure to seal premises. He said no notice was given to his clients. Rohatgi said the godowns were located on the land which was perpendicular to the National Highway and is a facility corridor, which is entirely commercial.
“It is a commercial stretch which was agricultural land before,” he said. Agricultural land is not residential, he said, pointing out the court’s order was for checking commercial misuse of residential property.
Asking the monitoring committee to respond to Rohatgi’s plea by January 30, the bench asked the lawyer whether the units had been following labour laws. When the counsel said noncompliance of labour law was not a ground for sealing, the bench said: “There are certain labour laws that are to be complied with. We don’t know whether you are? We will examine it.”