The Bombay High Court division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and justice Arif Doctor on friday said that the state government and civic authorities have a constitutional duty under article 21 and also a statutory obligation to supervise and monitor the road.
The court stated that the deaths of pedestrians and cyclists from falling in the man holds and potholes is not a natural cause, but a man made causes of death.
The court made these statements while hearing a petition by a lawyer Raju Thakker alleging non compliance of the 2018 orders of the court directing the civic authorities to repair the portholes and maintain the roads in the city.
Due to the slackness in complying with the order, the court summoned the commissioners of municipal corporations in Mumbai
metropolitan region including Thane, Brihan Mumbai, Vasai Virar etc.
The senior advocate Anil Sakhare representing the Brihan Mumbai corporation (BMC) argued that the increase in number of potholes was due to the heavy rain this year in many different places in a span of 5 weeks.
Further the commissioner of BMC Iqbal Singh Chahal produced the statistics of the maintenance of the road made by the BMC , where the petitioner raised doubts over the claims and statistics provided by the BMC. Due to which the court directed for an immediate inspection through spot survey on potholes in the city in the presence of a commission consisting of two advocates.
The court stated orally that “You (BMC) might have done concretisation of certain kilometres of roads till now, that does not mean roads are in good condition. Everyday there are newspaper reports about bad roads and the net result is the same. I have been a student of statistics and we were taught that there are three types of lies in statistics. Lies, damned lies and statistical lies. These statistics are not to be confused with the amount
of work that needs to be done. If you see your own data, the rainfall has not increased much this year. Main cause is negligence and what is done with government funds’.
Further the court criticised the State for not acting on the suggestions made by chahal After an year from passing of the order ‘to handover all the roads in Mumbai to one authority’ in
order to maintain and upkeep the roads better. The court added that only a simple executive process was to be adopted and the decision was to be taken to bring the suggestion into applicability.
Written by: Abhirami Sudheer, Elayadath College: Government Law, College, Kozhikode, Kerala , Semester: 4th semester of 3 year LLB, an intern, under Legal Vidhiya
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