The Bombay High Court was furious at the Maharashtra government and the civic bodies for failing to comply with its directions and said that deaths due to poor condition of roads, potholes and manholes are not natural but “man-made”, and it is the constitutional obligation of the authorities to ensure good, motorable and safe roads are provided to citizens.
HC rebukes state govt for not acting on suggestions
A division bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor also rapped the state government for not taking any decision on a suggestion made in the court last year to hand over all roads in the city to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for maintenance and repair work and of setting up a Centralised Grievance Redressal Mechanism for addressing road-related complaints.
The HC is hearing a contempt petition filed by advocate Ruju Thakker alleging wilful non-compliance by the BMC with the 2018 judgement on a public interest litigation (PIL) related to fixing of roads in the city and neighbouring areas.
6 municipal commissioners were present in HC on Friday
The commissioners of six municipal corporations – Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar and Mira-Bhayander – were present in the court on Friday, pursuant to HC directions.
The judges have asked all the corporations to file an “exhaustive affidavits” detailing steps taken by them for implementing the 2018 order asking them to ensure that all roads are made potholes free.
“A pedestrian or a cyclist falling into an open manhole is not an accident or a natural disaster, it is a man-made disaster. You not only have a constitutional duty under Article 21, but also a statutory obligation,” the CJ said, adding that it was not the court’s job to pass orders on such issues.
BMC commissioner Iqbal Chahal told the court on Friday that the Mumbai roads had deteriorated this year due to the heavy rainfall witnessed by the city this year.
Senior Advocate Anil Sakhare for BMC said all 2,050 kms of roads in the BMC's custody will be concretised in the next three years. Concretisation of 1,400 kms of roads is complete and 502 kms are still underway. He said over 55 thousand pothole complaints were looked into by the BMC.
However, other Municipal Commissioners in the MMR region where the condition of roads is far worse, barely spoke.
Lies, damn lies and statistical lies: CJ
However, the judges were not impressed. “You might have repaired n kms of roads but the fact remains the roads are not motorable. Everyday instances are being reported in the paper, the net result remains the same. I am a statistics student. I've gone through the data. And there are three types of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistical lies!!” the CJ said.
These statistics are not to be confused with the amount of work that needs to be done, the court added.
Environmentalist Zoru Bathena, who has also filed a plea, emphasised the lack of will to improve roads by the various Municipal Corporations. He said that the civic bodies’ argument that only concretised roads will last is a scam. “All the roads repaired for the G20 Summit survived. They were not concretised roads,” Bathena said.
On a court query, state advocate PP Kakade said that the government is yet to take a decision on the suggestion of handing over all the roads in Mumbai to the BMC.
Irked, the CJ said: “It was a simple executive decision. Why is it taking so long? Providing a motorable safe road is as much your responsibility as it is of the corporations. What have you done? The menace continues even today. The problem continues.”
The bench has also directed a joint spot survey to be conducted of 24 wards to ascertain whether BMC has placed protective grills covers on over 1 lakh manholes across Mumbai. The survey of each ward will be conducted by a civil official and an advocate-commissioner to be appointed by the court. A report has to be submitted after 3 weeks.
The BMC claims over 6,000 potholes in flood prone areas have been covered with protective grills and the remaining 94,000 potholes would be covered by May 2024.
The judges also directed Thane collector to conduct an inquiry into the death of a biker (37) due to a pothole on Ghodbunder Road.
