Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Vintage judicial activism

by Manish Anand

The Delhi High Court’s directive to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to demolish all unauthorised buildings in Delhi in four weeks time refreshed the memory of “Judicial Activism” that India saw in 1990s when governance saw massive breakdown all over India. Now, the MCD bulldozers are razing down these buildings with alacrity.

No surprise that the politicians of Delhi have gone into a huddle to save their vote banks. They are now pressuring the Delhi chief minister, Mrs Sheila Dikshit, and the MCD commissioner, Mr Ashok Kumar Nigam, to find out a face saving formula, reportedly through an amendment of building by-laws and promulgation of Delhi Master Plan-2021 as well as by delaying the demolition campaign itself to buy further time.


As mean they are, they just can not come out of it!


Why did all these unauthorised constructions came up in the first place, that too in utter violation of building by-laws.It’s a known fact that the law-makers in India themselves have no regards for the laws and they do not lose any opportunity to wreck the existing laws. They have their vote banks to protect with whom they can not reason on their lawlessness and hence they would like that the government legalise all these illegal constructions post-facto.Delhi hosts too many conferences and seminars with experts telling people how Delhi is waiting for a disaster to strike and with all these lawlessness in real estate business, having no regard for the mandatory safety norms required due to Delhi being in highly sensitive seismic zone.


The politicians come and listen and give the most stale lecture only to close their eyes to their collusion in the building racket that is going unabated in Delhi.Most disgusting are the urban prowls, enjoying the status of villages. Being in the heart of Delhi, they enjoy all freedom to go on with building activities with no by-laws and no tax policy on the rental that they earn in place.


The result is an utter urban madness. Visit any of the urban prowl and you would just shake your head for the ghettos that the people live in. The only exception is that these ghettoes are concrete madness. The so called village inhabitants earn rent in lakhs every month and with greed unending buildings are only touching sky. Come any disaster, the population will be just wiped out in one stroke, many experts have said time and again. Then the “royal living politicians” will comfortably dole out obituaries for the lives lost.


Judiciary remains the only hope for Indians and it must pursue in its act relentlessly and intelligently read into the cunning acts of the politicians and save people from them.

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