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This is an archive article published on April 5, 2024
High Court pulls up Delhi govt over lack of ladies’ washrooms in consumer courts in city
The Delhi HC said department of food will provide the infrastructure without requiring any order by the state commission.
"This court clarifies that the department of food supply and consumer affairs will provide the aforesaid infrastructure without requiring any order by the state commission. Needless to state that the Public Works Department will coordinate with the government on the issue," the bench said.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday pulled up the Delhi government while hearing a batch of petitions concerning lack of infrastructure in the state and district consumer disputes redressal forums in the city including non-availability of ladies’ toilets and drinking water.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said, “Despite the present batch of writ petitions being pending for more than three years, still all the district consumer disputes redressal commissions in this capital city do not have washrooms for ladies as well as drinking water”.
During the hearing, the bench orally told the government counsel, “By slashing our budgets and doing all this you think you can muzzle us? We had to go to the Supreme Court and get our budgets, our projects cleared; because you were not clearing it. That’s your normal trend. For everything we need to go to the Supreme Court for orders. There are no ladies toilets in the consumer forums. You are doing it deliberately with judicial infrastructure”.
The counsel submitted that the state consumer commission has to issue sanction orders to the department concerned with respect to the requirement of facilities and that “no budgets had been cut”.
The bench asked the counsel if there were ladies’ toilets in the consumer commissions, to which the counsel said, “I’m told it is not there”.
The counsel, thereafter, “assured” the bench that ladies’ washroom and drinking water facilities in all the consumer forums will be made available “within three months”.
“This court clarifies that the department of food supply and consumer affairs will provide the aforesaid infrastructure without requiring any order by the state commission. Needless to state that the Public Works Department will coordinate with the government on the issue,” the bench said.
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During the hearing the bench orally remarked that “common people use these forums” for resolving their issues observing that the public cannot be inconvenienced. It also asked the counsel appearing for the Delhi government to “impress upon the government that this is not the way to treat such forums”.
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