HC asks Centre to give action plan to ensure buildings in

Taking "judicial notice" of a series of earthquakes that occurred close to India this year, the Delhi High Court today said a majority of buildings here were structurally unsafe and asked the Centre to submit an action plan for ensuring buildings survie the quake.
Observing that Delhi falls in seismic zone IV, a high risk area, a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva gave the Centre three weeks time to submit an action plan for ensuring that buildings in the city survive an earthquake like that the one that had rocked Nepal earlier and Afghanistan two days ago.

"We are acceding to the request (for more time) but we do not know whether nature would accede to it. We hope that no disaster takes before the next date of hearing," the bench said and listed the matter for further hearing on December 2.
While giving time to the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) to file its plan of action, the court expressed the hope that no earthquake occurs in Delhi during this time as such an event would result in the death of lakhs of people.
Terming as "unsatisfactory" what has been done till now by the Centre as well as by various government bodies in the national capital, it asked the authorities and civic agencies to hold consultations amongst themselves to come up with a proposal to tackle the issue.

The court also expressed displeasure that its earlier directions to ensure safety of structures and prevention of unauthorized constructions have gone unheeded.

It said that whenever any action was suggested then the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act was "put up as a defence" since under this statute all unauthorised structures that took place till June 2014 were protected from any enforcement.
The bench observed that under this Act there was a provision by which the MoUD can withdraw the protection by way of a notification and asked the Centre whether it was considering withdrawing the exemption granted to unauthorised structures.

The court was hearing a PIL by advocate Arpit Bhargava questioning how safe were the buildings in the national capital if an earthquake, like that in Nepal, hits Delhi.