You’ ll destroy the city in another five years. What kind of MC are you? Not a single park is being maintained properly - HC BENCH TO MC
From page 1 CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the chief architect of Chandigarh to designate proper parking space for rickshaws in every sector of the city.
The special division bench, comprising justice Surya Kant and justice Ajay Tewari, on Friday, also directed the Chandigarh administration to submit complete details of the construction of multi-level parking in the city and its tendering process with the expected date of its completion.
During the hearing of the case, the bench observed that despite repeated directions by the high court, the authorities concerned had not bothered to specify rickshaw parking places in the city.
The court emphasised that it was also interested in ensuring that the authorities take appropriate steps to check cartelisation of rickshaws.
“In every city, there are persons who own even 50 or 100 rickshaws and the rickshawpullers are the sufferers. We want that rickshaw pullers should be owners of their rickshaws,” said justice Tewari, speaking for the bench.
He added t hat the court was interested in popularising non-polluting vehicles and also proper parking for them, which would reduce traffic chaos and accidents on roads.
Appearing for the Chandigarh administration, senior standing counsel Sanjay Kaushal sought some more time to file reply on the issue of making Sector 17 as vehicle-free zone.
Anguished over the authorities’ response to the court’s directions, t he bench said, “We don’t have expertise and mechanism to decide every issue at our level. We would appreciate if the authorities deliberate on issues properly, but they put every file under the carpet.”
The court also came down heavily on the Chandigarh municipal corporation for not maintaining parks properly.
“You’ll destroy the city in another five years. What kind of MC are you? Not a single park is being maintained properly,” the bench said.
The bench remarked, “The parking issues are pending for the past one-and-a-half years and the authorities have blatantly ignored us and not even done paper work in many cases.”
The court, however, said, “We are very clear. We’ll issue directions finally.” The case would now come up for hearing on December 1.
