Do you have guidelines for renaming roads,HC asks MCD

“The court would also want to know if there are any guidelines in place,and if a permission at all is required by a councillor concerned before taking a decision on what will be the name of the park and whose statute should be installed,” said Justice Kohli.

Issuing a notice to the MCD,the court said: “The (MCD) shall inform the court as to whether any guidelines have been formulated and whether the said guidelines lay down any procedure for taking into confidence the RWA of the area in question and obtain a no objection certificate (NOC) from it before proceeding to re-name any public park/install a statue there.”

During the last proceeding,the counsel for the MCD contended that as per the instructions obtained from the department concerned,there were some guidelines in existence for installation of statues or memorials and they have also been approved by the Ministry of Urban Development.

The counsel sought some time to file an affidavit listing the procedure followed by the MCD before taking a decision in this regard and the court gave four weeks to the agency to place on record its stand.

Justice Kohli has also sought a categorical response regarding requirement of a NOC from the RWA,since the petition concerned was moved by the RWA of the Dilshad Garden,which was aggrieved by re-naming of a park in the society as Maharaja Surajmal Park and also reportedly installing his statute therein.

The petition moved by C-Block (Block No 1 to 50) RWA has claimed that there was no rationale behind christening the park and installing a statue in it and that it was nothing but a political gimmick by area councillor,Ajit Singh Choudhary.

According to the petition,the development of the park was never an area of concern for the councillor and re-naming as well as installing the statute was aimed at gaining political mileage.

Speaking to the Newsline,Congress councillor Choudhary denied the allegations and alleged that the petition was not filed by the persons comprising valid RWA,but by others using spurious documents of the RWA.

“I have done several development works in the park for the benefit of the residents and hence the existent RWA has supported me. However,a few people are using the RWA documents to file motivated petitions against me,” he said.