SC seeks details on shelter facilities for homeless in Delhi

As winter sets in, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) to furnish details of the facilities available to shelter homeless persons in the national capital.

“We are concerned. We are on the eve of what is going to be a very chilly winter,” a Bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice KV Viswanathan said.

Asking the DUSIB to file an affidavit giving out details, including the facilities available with the board for accommodating the homeless, the Bench posted the matter for hearing on December 17.

While hearing a matter concerning the right to shelter of homeless persons in the urban areas, it said if there was any deficit in the facilities available the DUSIB should spell out how it intended to deal with the situation.

On behalf of one of the petitioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan said the top court had passed several orders in the matter in the past treating it as an important issue.

The total capacity of shelter homes in Delhi was only around 17,000 persons and the DUSIB had demolished nine such shelter homes, which had around 450 people living there, though the capacity was only 286, he submitted.

Responding to a query posed by the Bench, the DUSIB counsel said it was around 17,000 and the application filed before the court concerned only six temporary shelter homes that were destroyed due to floods in the Yamuna river in 2023. Since June 2023, nobody lived there.

He said the applicant should not have any objection if homeless people around that area were being shifted to a permanent shelter home at Geeta colony.

The lawyer said not even a single death was reported owing to cold conditions in Delhi during the last winter.

The Bench told the DUSIB counsel to furnish details of facilities available for the homeless and if these were sufficient to meet the requirements, suggesting it to take the average of the last five-six years of authentic data.

The Bench took exception to Bhushan’s statement that there was an allegation of bribery against one of the senior officers of the DUSIB and an FIR was also registered in the matter. “This amounts to character assassination… Making such wild allegations that he is involved in corruption…Where do you find it? This seriously affects somebody’s reputation,” the Bench said, noting the officer was not even made an accused in the case.