Repair potholes in 3 days or face prosecution: Cops warn civic officials
| Date :16-Oct-2019 |
Staff Reporter :
Cops appeal citizens to lodge complaints about potholes on roads, on official e-mail id [email protected], WhatsApp number 9011387100, and Twitter handle @trafficngp
After facing flak from the High Court about lack of any action against civic body officials and contractors responsible for bad roads full of potholes leading to hundreds of mishaps, Nagpur Police on Tuesday put officials of all the civic agencies on notice and made it clear that failure to repair potholes within three days from the date of complaint would result in registration of offence against the erring staffers. In his latest affidavit, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Chinmay Pandit stated that every complaint received by police would be forwarded to the department concerned with a request to attend the said complaint and repair the potholes on the roads immediately.
If no corrective steps are taken in three days, the police station concerned under whose jurisdiction the potholes are there on roads, will be directed to register an offence under Sections 217 and 283 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the responsible officer, the affidavit claimed. Apart from Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), many agencies like National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Maha Metro, Public Works Department (PWD), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Orange City Water (OCW), Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) and even the private telecom operators often dug city roads and very rarely restore them to original condition. DCP Pandit further informed a division bench consisting of Justice Z A Haq and Justice Pushpa Ganediwala that the Police Department had decided to appeal to vigilant citizens to lodge complaints on official e-mail id [email protected] and also promised a wide publicity to said email id, WhatsApp number 9011387100 and Twitter handle @trafficngp in which grievance against bad roads having potholes could be filed.
About the grievance raised in the intervention application filed by Adv R P Joshi, the respondent claimed that the spots mentioned were personally inspected and partially the complaint was correct. A communication was issued to NMC to give details about the contractor concerned and whether he had completed the work in given time and/or reasons for delay. Already, the High Court has made it clear that officials and contractors responsible for upkeep of city roads must be made accountable and citizens will not be allowed to suffer due to shocking indifference displayed by the authorities citing absence of any penal provisions or criminal intentions on part of erring officers while in reality, millions of people are forced to suffer due to such shabby roads. In its last affidavit, Nagpur Police found no criminal culpability against NMC officials for pathetic condition of city roads and had claimed that due to wear and tear the roads got damaged.
After examining 22 cases of serious mishaps, City Police found that no criminal liability could be fastened against a particular civic body official. Amicus Curiae Rahil Mirza has repeatedly demanded that officers should be made responsible under Section 63 (18) of Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act. According to Section 63 (18) of Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, the corporation is dutybound to make reasonable and adequate provision, for construction, maintenance, alteration and improvement of public streets, bridges, sub-ways, culverts, cause-ways. NMC stated that bad roads were one of the factors but most of the accidents took place due to traffic rule violations. Besides, in none of these cases, anybody had lodged complaint against the civic body or its officials. Adv Rahil Mirza (Amicus Curiae), Government Pleader Sumant Deopujari (State), Adv Sudhir Puranik (NMC) appeared in the matter.