[sustran] Victory at Punjab & Haryana High Court : Fix parkings sites for rickshaws, HC orders UT admin

[Asija, Navdeep]

You’ ll destroy the city in another five years. What kind of MC are you?
Not a single park is being maintained properly - HC BENCH TO MC

>From page 1 CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the
chief architect of Chandigarh to designate proper parking space for cycle
rickshaws in every sector of the city.

The special division bench, comprising justice Surya Kant and justice Ajay
Tewari, on Friday, also directed the Chandigarh administration to submit
complete details of the construction of multi-level parking in the city and
its tendering process with the expected date of its completion.
During the hearing of the case, the bench observed that despite repeated
directions by the high court, the authorities concerned had not bothered to
specify rickshaw parking places in the city.
The court emphasized that it was also interested in ensuring that the
authorities take appropriate steps to check cartelisation of rickshaws.
“In every city, there are persons who own even 50 or 100 rickshaws and
the rickshaw-pullers are the sufferers. We want that rickshaw pullers
should be owners of their rickshaws,” said justice Tewari, speaking for the
bench.
He added that the court was interested in popularising non-polluting
vehicles and also proper parking for them, which would reduce traffic chaos
and accidents on roads.

Appearing for the Chandigarh administration, senior standing counsel Sanjay
Kaushal sought some more time to file reply on the issue of making Sector
17 as vehicle-free zone.

Anguished over the authorities’ response to the court’s directions, the
bench said, “We don’t have expertise and mechanism to decide every issue at
our level. We would appreciate if the authorities deliberate on issues
properly, but they put every file under the carpet.”The court also came
down heavily on the Chandigarh municipal corporation for not maintaining
parks properly.

“You’ll destroy the city in another five years. What kind of MC are you?
Not a single park is being maintained properly,” the bench said.
The bench remarked, “The parking issues are pending for the past
one-and-a-half years and the authorities have blatantly ignored us and not
even done paper work in many cases.”
The court, however, said, “We are very clear. We’ll issue directions
finally.” The case would now come up for hearing on December 1.

Hindustan Times, Chandigarh Edition, 3rd November 2012