The Supreme Court Acts to Strengthen the Rule of Law in Delhi

The tug of war, between the authority of Law on the one hand and the shrill forces of lawlessness and money in the form of a few thousand traders and their corrupt and unprincipled benefactors on the other, reached yet another landmark stage yesterday.

The Supreme Court of India again struck a blow for the countless law-abiding and silently suffering residents of Delhi by asking the big-fish (rich and powerful) culprits to arrange for 'adequate' parking facilities near their establishments before seeking their reopening.

This brings certain thoughts to my mind.

One, just what do the building laws and bye-laws say on the question of responsibilities, duties and legal liabilities of owners or users of commercial establishments (expected to be located in commercial areas) in the city as regards security, parking, toilets, fire safety, facilities for the women, children and handicapped? One hopes the Court was informed of all these requirements by the concerned parties.

Two, in case the said laws - being dated vis-a-vis the requirements of rapidly growing Delhi - are wanting in any manner, is it too much to expect that the MLAs of Delhi explain to their voters the reasons that have kept them from performing their primary legislative duty in this crucial area all this time? The people of Delhi have witnessed, thanks to our Media, just how aggressively and vociferously these representatives of ours were championing the 'cause' of all these illegal business establishments. And shouldn't they at least now commence the task in view of the preparations already afoot ahead of the Olympic Games of 2010?

Three, to the extent the laws actually exist and are in force, shouldn't the permanent bureaucracy, specifically charged with the duty of enforcing them do so at least now?

As the very presence of a commercial establishment in a residential area is illegal, there is no apparent reason why the axe should fall only on business establishments and not on the guilty politicians and bureaucrats. In fact, ethics demand that they be given a more rigorous (exemplary) punishment for consistently ignoring to perform their duty all those years when the illegal structures came up, grew and multiplied to create the ever-increasing chaos and disturbance for millions of innocent citizens.

Presumably the monitoring committees appointed by the court have taken into consideration the basic interests and rights of the numerous innocent citizens who had done no wrong by choosing to have their houses in the residential colonies in which these illegal business establishments came up. Or did the committes succumb to the common Indian tendency of ignoring the pain, tears and misery brought upon the victim of a crime and of rushing, instead, to assuage the 'misery' of the crime's perpetrator with bountiful misplaced sympathy?

One hopes the more resourceful and public-spirited citizens of Delhi will not allow the main lesson of Uphaar fire tragedy to be forgotten, not even if the memory span of the average Delhiite doesn't exceed a week! The lesson is simply that compromise with the rules meant for the benefit and safety of society must never be tolerated.