Delhi High Court raps civic bodies over poor state of public toilets

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday chided municipal bodies for showing "complete apathy and insensitivity" in maintaining public toilets in the capital.

A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Tushar Rao Gedela called it "hurting and unfortunate" as it examined photos of Delhi's public conveniences.

"The municipal authorities and development bodies like MCD, DDA and NDMC have exhibited a complete apathy, insensitivity and even dereliction of duty so far as the maintenance of public conveniences is concerned," it said.

The bench found it unfortunate to deal with the plea seeking adequate and appropriate toilet and conveniences to the public at large.

The PIL of Jan Sewa Welfare Society, a registered NGO, sought directions to the municipal authorities to ensure availability of hygienic public toilets with clean water and electricity in the capital.

Following previous directions, the authorities filed their status reports detailing their steps on the issue.

When the petitioner's counsel referred to the photos of a few public toilets, the court noted the absence of any adequate and requisite action on the authorities' part.

They need not be reminded repeatedly of their primary responsibility of providing adequate public conveniences under law, the court said.

"After all, the municipal bodies and development agencies are created by the legislature for the benefit of the general populace and they function on public money. It is hurting and unfortunate to note the conditions of toilets depicted in the photographs tendered by the counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner," the order said.

It appeared to the bench that the photos not only depicted the condition of the toilets shown in them but indicated the toilets elsewhere were "no better".

The court added, "Given such a state of public utilities available in the city, the problems being faced by women gets compounded by obvious reasons."

The MCD, NDMC and DDA were, as a result, ordered took escalate the issue to "highest level" aside from preparing individual comprehensive plans in their respective territorial jurisdictions.

The plan, the bench said, should be founded on an appropriate expert study, which should make appropriate recommendations to ensure public utility services remain usable.

The court directed the authorities to ensure public conveniences, including the ones in the photos, functioned appropriately.

The court had previously directed for a common application to be developed to enable civic bodies to attend to public grievances.