POTHOLE FREE ROADS NOW A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT

POTHOLE FREE ROADS NOW A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT

TUSHIKA PRIYADARSHINI 

BACKGROUND:

In May 2015, a division bench headed by Justice Oka, while dealing with a suo motu PIL, had directed all municipal corporations and the other agencies to issue circulars to its staff, placing them to notice concerning their duties and about the beginning of disciplinary action against erring officials.

 In April, a division bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising of Justice A S Oka and Justice C V Bhadang, held that a citizen has a fundamental right to have good and proper roads and properly levelled footpaths and it is the state government's statutory obligation to provide roads which are free of potholes. It further ruled that

“pothole-free roads and properly levelled footpaths are fundamental rights of every citizen of India, guaranteed under Article 21 on the Constitution, and in the occasion any loss caused due to its violation, the citizens have the right to seek out compensation. It is the duty of the authorities concerned to maintain the roads and footpaths and in such a condition that it can be conveniently used by pedestrians. This facet cannot be taken casually by any authority.”

 The observation was made by a division bench, which passed a complete order on a PIL emphasising the poor condition of roads in the state and events of motorists losing their lives due to roads full of potholes.

The bench had directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other different agencies to take care and maintain roads and footpaths in good condition and repair potholes promptly. It had also directed them to set up a grievance redressal system about complaints on potholes and bad roads. The BMC was also directed to cover all manholes.

 The court further held that the authority’s excuse every year that the roads are bad due to heavy monsoon cannot be acknowledged as every year the monsoon in the city is heavy.

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CURRENT ISSUE:

Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, who was heading a division bench, said he had been a party to two orders passed by the Bombay High Court, wherein the rights of citizens for a pothole-free road was upheld and liability was fixed on the municipal bodies in case of accidents happening due to potholes. He added that similar orders can be passed in Bengaluru as well.

The Court is hearing a PIL filed in the year 2015 wherein petitioners Vijayan Menon and others have prayed for a sequence of directions. Including a direction to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to submit an action-taken report on renovating potholes and provide machinery to facilitate the citizens to file complaints about the poor conditions of the streets. The division bench directed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to submit the latest centralised data regarding the number of potholes in Bengaluru roads before the next hearing on July 23. The bench also wanted to know about the methodology adopted by the Palike to count the potholes. However, BBMP blames the utilities.

Earlier, the BBMP counsel told the Court that due to several projects undertaken by utilities such as BWSSB, Bescom, BMRCL and others, roads are being ploughed up at many areas, which were once villages and now have been included in the BBMP. He added that BBMP ward engineers examine the potholes on a daily basis.

However, the counsel for petitioners claimed that even if about a 300 km stretch is left out, the 1,100km of the road is not in a good condition to which BBMP has refuted. The counsel said if the BBMP engineers had undertaken inspection on a daily basis, the cause of action would not have arisen.

Counsel for BBMP further contended that

“We are working very hard to guarantee that there are pothole-free roads. There is a mobile application where citizens can lodge complaints.”

Counsel for the petitioners argued that roads are not in good condition and the mobile application stated by the civic body counsel is a general application for registering complaints against many other things. Till now rains have been severe and not arrived in Bengaluru but once it rains, the condition will get worse. The court enunciated that only when there are claims for compensation filed by citizens against the civic body, there will be any action in order to restore to curb the damage.

CONCLUSION(POTHOLE FREE ROADS NOW A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT):

The Karnataka High Court said that it would pass an order on July 23, stating that “Pothole-free roads are fundamental rights of every citizen guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, and in the incident of any loss caused due to its violation; the citizens have the right to seek compensation.”

Moreover, Google had published a video where with the help of machine learning, potholes are located in Los Angeles. This can make the work a lot easier where the problems of long roads exist.

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LINK FOR THE VIDEO: CLICK HERE