Hearing a PIL (public interest litigation) on Dadu Majra dumping ground, a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation to present proposed solutions and the contract awarded for clearing the Dadu Majra garbage dump before the court on November 16. A detailed order in the matter was yet to be released. A division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Nidhi Gupta is hearing a PIL filed against the Municipal Corporation by a Chandigarh-based resident, Advocate Amit Sharma, and Dipti Singh. While Sharma appears in person in the matter, the other petitioner, Dipti Singh, appears through counsel Ranjan Lakhanpal and advocate Molly A Lakhanpal. As the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, Justice Bahri asked the MC counsel Gaurav Mohunta to demonstrate to the court how this problem will be resolved. The Bench told the MC counsel to present the contract in the court and explain how it would clear the garbage mountains. The Bench added that when there are technologies available to resolve this issue, why it is continuing to linger. In July this year, Sharma had filed a perjury application against the Municipal Corporation in response to its latest in a series of action taken reports (ATRs). He had accused the MC of presenting false information to the court. Sharma had claimed there was a wall around the dump at a time when a significant portion had collapsed within a year of being built, and leachate was flowing on the roads. On Wednesday, the MC counsel countered this charge by asserting that their work is progressing as planned, and they had signed a new contract. The MC claimed that one of the three dumps at Dadu Majra had been cleared, which Sharma denied by saying that legacy waste had merely been covered by a layer of soil but leachate continued to flow. Sharma alleged that despite claims of progress, the waste crisis had intensified, with the number of garbage dumps rising from one to three from 2021 to 2023. The processing of waste had fallen from 13 per cent in 2020 to less than 10 per cent in 2022, while hundreds of crores of taxpayers’ money was being spent on new contracts. Citing successful waste management models, Sharma referred to Indore's rapid resolution of its garbage mountain within six months at a fraction of the cost. NITTTR in Chandigarh, he told the court, had also proposed a cost-effective solution. After listening to the two sides, the High Court Bench directed the MC to present its solutions and contract to the court on November 16.
