Plea in HC on Chinese manjha menace

A plea was filed in the Delhi High Court highlighting the menace caused by the use of Chinese manjha as also seeking direction to the AAP government for restricting the timings of kite flying and to designate a place for it.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru was informed by Delhi government standing counsel Rahul Mehra that a PIL in this regard was instituted before a division bench and certain orders have been passed.

The court noted that the plea was in the nature of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) disposed of the petition saying no further orders are required to be issued by it.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Delhi resident Mohit Ghalyan, an engineer who was a victim of an injury caused by Chinese manjha on August 15, 2012 and had sustained wounds on his neck.

Advocate Rishi Pal Singh, representing Ghalyan, sought direction to the Delhi government and Commissioner of Police for publication of guidelines for kite flying and banning the chinese string.

The plea said thought the Delhi government has already banned the production, storage and sale of metal or glass-coated kite strings, the number of incidents reveal that the ban was restricted only to papers and lacked implementation.

It also referred to various incidents caused by the manjha resulting into deaths of humans, animals and birds.

The plea mentioned that on August 16 this year, metro services on the blue line were affected for around 90 minutes due to a technical snag caused by kite threads.

It was found that excessive kite threads got entangled with the overhead electrification at multiple locations here, endangering the lives of thousands of passengers.