High Court notice to Chandigarh Admn on plea over replacing cycle carts with vehicles

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 18

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has put on notice the UT Administration, the Mayor and other respondents on a petition questioning the policy for replacement of cycle carts with motorised door-to-door garbage collection

In the petition, Kuldeep and 40 other petitioners engaged in the work of garbage collection contended through counsel Harmanjit Singh Sethi and APS Shergill that the Chandigarh municipal corporation drew its powers from the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act of 1978. It endowed power to the Municipal Commissioner to provide for vehicles or other suitable means for removal of rubbish.

‘Civic body has no power to do so’

“Now, the established policy has been whimsically amended by the Municipal Corporation, which does not even have the power to do so,” the Bench of Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha and Justice Arun Palli was told.

The general practice was that the garbage collector would collect the garbage from various households and take it to a vantage point from where MC vehicles transported the waste to the dumping ground. “Now, the established policy has been whimsically amended by the municipal corporation, which does not even have the power to do so,” the Bench of Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha and Justice Arun Palli was told.

It was submitted that MC General House and the UT Administration lacked power to amend Central rules as they did not have the power to legislate. It rests with Parliament in case of Chandigarh as it is a union territory.

It was added that the policy was to be enforced without hearing or involving the stakeholders in the deliberation process or without even conducting a public hearing which was necessary under Article 14. It was in complete defiance of their basic fundamental rights.

It would adversely affect their livelihood, which was an integral part of their fundamental right to life contained in Article 21 of the Constitution. The petitioners also sought directions for staying and restraining the respondent from illegally disbanding and suspending the process and preventing the garbage collectors in Chandigarh from carrying out their work, which was the only means of employment and source of income for them in these economically challenging times of Covid.