Seized vehicles can’t be allowed to encroach on roads and footpaths in a city with space crunch like Mumbai: HC

“In a city like Mumbai which has acute scarcity of space and including as faced by the police stations, and the limited space of public roads and footpaths, we also observed that such public spaces cannot be encroached by dumping/storing of seized vehicles,” a bench of Justices Girish S Kulkarni and Advait M Sethna said on May 8 while hearing a plea filed by Marathon Maxima Co. Op. Housing Society from Mulund (West).

The plea raised concerns over the dumping or parking of vehicles towed or confiscated by the police on roads, streets and the surroundings of police stations in Mumbai.

On April 8, the court observed that while encroachments on footpaths were making the lives of pedestrians “miserable”, problems of unlawful parking or dumping of seized vehicles on public roads and in open spaces were adding to such woes.

On May 8, the high court perused an affidavit filed by the additional commissioner of police in the traffic department detailing steps taken and stating that communication had been issued to all officers across the city that abandoned vehicles should be moved to a dumping yard.

The affidavit added that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had contracted a private company to identify and scrap abandoned vehicles.

The high court said that convenient ward-wise locations need to be identified for dumping the vehicles and should be part of long-term measures to be undertaken to address the issue, adding that appropriate advisories should be issued to dispose of vehicles no longer required in any proceedings.

The high court further said that seized vehicles should not lie outside the police stations. “We clarify that such directions which are issued by the higher officials of the Traffic Department ought not to fall on deaf ears and are required to be strictly followed and implemented by the officer-in-charge of the concerned police stations,” it said.

In case of a breach of such orders, “an appropriate departmental view can be taken against the inaction of the concerned officers as also it be brought to the notice of the Court”, the court said.

The high court posted further hearings in the matter to July 2 and asked the authorities to provide it with a “clear picture in regard to all the police stations in Mumbai” and the steps taken by the authorities.