SC pulls up Centre for causing city’s ‘collapse’

NEWDELHI: Coming down heavily on the Centre and civic authorities of Delhi for failing to act swiftly against unauthorized use of residential premises, the Supreme Court on Thursday said the city had collapsed due to the apathy of officials who have chosen not to do their work.

The disappointment by a bench led by Justice MB Lokur was conveyed when an officer from the Centre was unable to give an update to the court on the status of a survey carried out in Amar Colony area where sealing was stopped on account of the exercise.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar read out court-appointed monitoring committee’s report and said the government had failed to apprise the court on the outcome of the survey. Kumar is assisting the court and the committee has been mandated to carry out sealing of premises that are misused for commercial purposes in violation of the law.

Justice Lokur asked additional solicitor general AS Nadkarni: “In the last five months how much survey have you done.” When the law officer said the corporation was entrusted the task, the judge told him that the Centre was required to supervise and take a report. The judges were even further surprised to know that a report on the survey of 800 houses completed two months ago was still under finalization. Nadkarni was asked to find out the reason behind the delay and come back on Friday.