Frustrating for a judge to see his order not implemented: Delhi HC

Expressing frustration over the current traffic scenario, Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, the second senior-most judge of the Delhi high court, on Wednesday narrated his ordeal of getting caught in a traffic snarl on his way to court.

“You can’t imagine how frustrating it is for a high court judge to pass an order regarding traffic congestion in Delhi and later see it not being complied with,” Justice Ahmed said while narrating his ordeal during the hearing on an air pollution case. The bench, which also comprised Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva, directed the special commissioner of police (traffic) to personally look into the compliance of the court’s directions on regulating vehicular movement on roads and carriageway.

“I was coming to the court at around 10.30 am and at the roundabout near the house of the vice-president of India, I saw people moving in the carriageway. I asked the traffic police personnel deployed there that why they were not challaning the people driving wrongly in carriage way. He said to me they are not supposed to challan before 11 am,” Justice Ahmed said.

Justice Ahmed asked the counsel for the Delhi police what kind of traffic management was this that a traffic violator is fined only when there was a free flow of traffic and not when it is very much needed. “In the last hearing of the case, you filed an affidavit saying the people driving in carriageway wrongly will be challaned as well as booked under Section 279 (driving dangerously) of IPC. You see on the ground, nothing happens,” the bench observed. It said there has to be some thinking in the traffic department about the management and regulation of traffic and intelligent personnel need to be deployed on the roads.

“Traffic congestion is nothing new for cities in India. Traffic of Bombay is regulated in a much better way. A person sitting in car on Delhi road is so frustrated that when he reaches his office, he may start a fight with his colleague,” the bench observed.

The bench also said Delhi was burning fuel worth billions of rupees due to traffic congestion and idling of vehicles which also contributes to air pollution.