HC raps civic bodies, says court is doing municipal works

The Delhi High Court today came down heavily on civic agencies for not doing enough to stop water-logging during Monsoon rains, saying instead of judicial work, the court was busy dealing with municipal issues.
"What has happened to the system? For last two-three days, I am mostly dealing with civic and municipal works. There is no judicial work," a bench headed by Justice N V Ramana, who took oath as Chief Justice on September 2, said.
The bench, also comprising Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, said the Delhi government and civil bodies, including MCD and DJB, have failed to come up with the "short-term and the long- term" plans to tackle with the problem of water-logging.

It then reserved its order on the petition, saying, "At some point of time, the court's intervention has to come to an end. Such floating PILs take a lot of judicial time."
The court said it would pass certain directions and asked the civic agencies to take action accordingly.
Earlier, a bench headed by Acting Chief Justice B D Ahmed had asked the heads of all civic agencies and other public bodies to depute officers who would look after the work and could be held accountable in case water-logging is reported from their areas during the Monsoon.

It had also pulled up MCD officials for their failure to take measures to stop water-logging in some areas of the city despite its earlier directions and had said ,"If you don't do your job seriously, the angry public would beat you up."

The bench had on August 22 also asked the officials to carry out a drive for a week to be on the roads to monitor the situation during rains.
It had asked each Commissioner of the trifurcated MCD to make their Deputy Commissioners responsible to take steps for stopping water-logging in their respective zones and in case of failure to take such measures, the heads will take disciplinary action against the officers responsible.
The court had also expressed anguish over the failure of the civic agencies to de-silt the drains.