New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wedesday decided
to monitor the ongoing work of a task force set up by it to
decongest city roads even while allowing all types of
vehicles, including non-motorised ones, to ply on them.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice AK Sikri and Justice
Rajiv Sahai Endlaw decided to entrust the task of monitoring
the implementation of its February 2010 order as per which it
had set up a task force mandating it to examine vehicular
traffic in city.
The bench had asked the task force to evolve a traffic
system under which no mode of traffic, including non-motorised
bicycles and cycle-rickshaws, are denied access to some roads
in Walled City area.
The bench had, however, also asked the task force to
ensure that non-motorised vehicles plying on these roads do
not lead to a traffic congestion or snarl.
The responsibility to monitor the ongoing work of the
high court-appointed task force was given to a bench of
justices S Ravindra Bhat and S Muralidhar, which would examine
the special traffic project every alternate Friday.
The court decided to begin monitoring its task force work
on the plea by NGO `Manushi Sangathan` which pointed out that
the court had set up the task force to decongest the traffic
in the Walled City area more than a year ago but it is not
known as to what it has done in the intervening period.
The NGO also recalled that the high court, while setting
up its task force, had expressed its inclination to monitor
its work but it was not taken up.
It was on the NGO`s plea that the high court had last
year taken objection to the police decision of banning
cycle-rickshaws and other non-motorised vehicles on some key
roads in and around Chandni Chowk in Walled City area and had
allowed them to ply on these roads.
The NGO had approached the court against the police
decision contending that many migrant labourers, who earn
their livelihood by plying rickshaws, would be deprived of it.
PTI
