Fix timeline for traffic bottlenecks: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Delhi  police commissioner to come out with a timeline for removing traffic bottlenecks at 77 congested corridors in the city. The SC also asked him to frame a policy to deal with impounded vehicles lying at police stations in the city.

Pulling up the authorities for not having a timeline on the issue, a bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta referred to a dialogue from a Bollywood movie tareekh pe tareekh (date after date) about court proceedings and observed nothing has happened on the issue even after 54 meetings were convened.   

Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik, who appeared in the court in pursuance to its direction, told the bench that traffic congestion would be cleared and that he would ensure that a timeline of the work was placed before the SC soon.

“You want the city of Delhi to crack up? Now there are floods in Delhi. Everything which should not happen is happening in Delhi,” the bench told an official of the public works department (PWD) of the Delhi government, who was present in the court room.

Referring to the recent submersion of a bus on Minto Road following heavy rains in Delhi, the bench told Mr Patnaik, “You cannot have buses going underwater on Minto Road. This news is coming in newspapers abroad. Can you imagine what it reflects about the capital of the most emerging economy of the world?”.

The SC, while pointing towards 54 meetings convened by the officials on this issue, said that it cannot go on like this and timeline of work has to be finalised.

When ASG Pinky Anand said that several agencies were involved in the matter and it was not confined to only the Delhi police, the bench said, “We are asking you about a timeline for the third time. In front of Nizamuddin police station, you are not able to remove the junk. Cars and vehicles are lying over there. What have you done?”.

The court said there was congestion in police stations across the city and it should be cleared. When Mr Anand said there was “congestion in court also”, the bench asked the top cop as to what he proposes to do to deal with the situation.

“Do you have a policy with regard to the impounded vehicles lying in the police stations.” The top cop said such vehicles were case property items and they  have taken steps to de-congest the police stations. “Vehicles lying at police stations are like junk. Bring it to the notice of the courts that what we should do with them,” the bench said.

It asked the top cop to frame a policy in this regard and to hold a meeting to fix the time line for decongestion of traffic bottlenecks.      

D14