Lajpat Nagar Central market completely littered, SDMC did

The Delhi High Court today said South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) "has done nothing" to clean up Lajpat Nagar Central market area which was found by one of the judges, hearing the matter, to be "completely littered."
"You are doing nothing. Nothing has been done to keep Lajpat Nagar clean because Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva went there this Sunday (May 17) and found that the Central Market was littered," Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, who heads the bench hearing the PIL for cleanliness in the city, said.
"The Central Market area was completely littered. It was not litter of that one day, but it was evident that it had not been touched for days," Justice Sachdeva, also part of the bench, said.

SDMC counsel, Ajay Arora, thereafter assured the court that he would personally take up the issue with officials of the Corporation to ensure that the area was kept clean.
Meanwhile, an association representing safai karamchaaris sought that they be impleaded in the PIL so that they can place their version before the court.
The PIL petitioner Nyay Bhoomi, represented by B B Sharan, alleged that the safai karamchaaris had recently beaten up officials of the Corporation who had gone to inspect their work.

The court, however, did not go into the issues today and listed the matter for further hearing on July 29.

On May 13, the court had slammed SDMC for not doing anything to keep Lajpat Nagar in south Delhi clean despite its direction and said the civic body was not concerned about the people.
The court had on March 18 directed SDMC and other civic bodies to start cleaning, from March 19, the entire Lajpat Nagar in south Delhi and to maintain it that way as a "test" of their "efficiency and ability" to keep the city clean.
The high court had issued the direction to see if the civic bodies were "capable" of maintaining cleanliness in a model area "or else we will disband the Corporations".