HC refuses urgent hearing to PIL on fight between metro staff, CISF personnel

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The Delhi High Court today refused to grant an urgent hearing to a PIL seeking action against those responsible for alleged stalling of metro train services for some time last week after a scuffle between the Delhi Metro and CISF staff members.

The plea came up before a vacation bench of Justices P S Teji and Pratibha M Singh which said the Public Interest Litigation will be heard by a regular court as it was not a PIL court and listed the matter for July 5.

Petitioner Puran Chand Arya, a former central government employee, sought directions to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF), Delhi Police and Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure that such incidents do not occur again as any unlawful stalling of the movement of metro train results in serious problems to the citizens.

Advocate Abhishek Kumar Choudhary, appearing for the petitioner, said it was a matter of great concern and added that a heated argument, which turned into a physical fight between a CISF sub inspector and station manager of Dwarka Sector 21 metro station, resulted in train movement grinding to a halt on the Blue Line on the evening of May 31.

The petitioner, founder of Ardh Sainik Welfare Trust, said in the plea that train services on Blue Line were briefly suspended between Dwarka Sector 21 and Janakpuri West due to a protest by Metro rail staff.

It said that the incident was triggered at around 12.30 pm by an argument that ensued when a tyre of a vehicle apparently belonging to the CISF was deflated since it was parked in an unauthorised zone outside the premises of Dwarka Sector 21 station.

The plea claimed that since the vehicle was parked illegally, the station manager "had ordered to deflate the tyre". The metro services were temporarily stopped at 9:10 PM and were resumed at around 9:45 PM, it added.