People leaving Delhi due to pollution levels & crime rates: HC

People of the national capital were probably leaving the city due to pollution levels and the crime rate, which the authorities appeared unwilling to control, the Delhi High Court said today.
A bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar observed this after the Centre told the court that the decadal growth rate of population was declining as per census records.
Attributing this purported downward trend in population growth to people leaving the national capital, the court said, "People are leaving Delhi because of pollution and crime rate which you (authorities) are not willing to control".
The issue was raised before the court which was hearing a PIL initiated by it after the December 16, 2012 gangrape case, in which it has been giving directions from time to time with regard to improving crime investigation and protection of women in Delhi.

The court was also informed that Delhi Police was contemplating bringing forensic laboratories under its administrative control while the AAP government has said this move should be stopped before it is implemented.
The bench did not issue any direction as sought by the Delhi government and asked the lawyer for the police to inform the court whether there was any such move to bring the forensic labs under its control.

Amicus curiae Meera Bhatia told the court that there have been several incidents of rapes of women in the city from January this year till August 8, to which the court remarked "what is happening to the city?"

The Centre, on the other hand, said that a high level committee (HLC) of senior police officers has been formed and it had on July 27 held a meeting where certain decisions were taken regarding criteria to enhance strength of Delhi police.
Delhi Police, through its lawyer Rajesh Mahajan, told the court that in response to the minutes of the meeting held on July 27, it has forwarded two letters to the LG containing various proposals to increase its manpower by around 54,000.
(Reopens LGD35)
On the delay in answering of calls made to emergency number 100, Ministry of Communications (MoC) told the court that it has received inputs regarding the reasons and would file an affidavit on the issue in two weeks.

The police said it has sent emails through Ministry of External Affairs to Police Commissioners of major cities around the world on their response times and their replies are awaited.
Delhi government submitted before the court that backlog of cases in its forensic labs with regard to DNA testing would be reduced to zero in eleven months.
It also said that turnaround time of samples received by the labs for testing would also be reduced as more manpower has been inducted.
The court observed that if turnaround time goes down, backlog would automatically go down. It also expressed concern over storage of samples received by biological and chemistry divisions.

It directed the police to file an affidavit indicating the manner in which biological and chemical samples are stored in the 'malkhana' of police stations prior to them being sent to the labs.
Police was also asked to indicate in its affidavit how the samples were stored after being collected and while in transit to the 'malkhana'.
On whether the victims of rape received any compensation, an issue which was brought to attention of the court by amicus curiae, the court asked Delhi State Legal Services Authority to examine the cases and to submit a report.
Delhi government was also asked to examine the cases of the victims and if compensation was not paid to them, then to take steps for immediate payment.

The court also sought a report from Centre regarding the status of the progress regarding processing of the victim compensation scheme for Delhi.