Civic bodies face Delhi HC ire over garbage in schools

New Delhi: Quit your jobs and sit at home. Is this how you treat your children? An anguished bench of the Delhi high court told this to the officials of the city government and the municipal corporations for their failure to implement daily garbage collection from city schools.

A bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar asked the municipal corporations officials to fall in line, chiding them saying “is this how you treat your children”. It also observed that the authorities now need PILs to get the schools of Delhi cleaned.

On May 17, the bench had directed the three MCDs, the New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Cantonment Board to ensure that garbage was collected from all schools under their territorial jurisdiction and disposed of.

It had ordered that garbage removal shall be effected on a daily basis. The authorities would int-imate to the schools of the time when the collection and removal of garbage would be undertaken.

The directions were issued during hearing of a PIL by NGO Justice for All, which through counsel Khagesh Jha, had said that the government schools stink because the garbage thrown by the students was not being cleaned regularly.

When the matter came up for hearing before the bench, it was informed that garbage was still lying in these schools and even the toilets were found to be unhygienic. Hearing this, the bench asked why did they need eight weeks to clean schools. “This should be a regular practice. You are unable to clean it, despite direction from the court. You should resign from your jobs and sit at home,” the bench said.