“Target jelly fishes but catch sharks,” the Karnataka high court observed on Friday, while giving directions to the BBMP to identify within a month encroachments along storm water drains in the city.
“Target jelly fishes but catch sharks,” the Karnataka high court observed on Friday, while giving directions to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to identify within a month encroachments along storm water drains (SWDs) in the city.
A division bench headed by chief justice JS Khehar and justice HG Ramesh directed the BBMP to submit a report listing out details on the encroachments along the SWDs within a month.
The bench issued this direction while listening to a public interest litigation filed by the Five Year Law Course Advocates Association in 2009. The petitioners had contended that there were many encroachments along the city’s SWDs and they should be cleared as early as possible.
The bench took serious note of the encroachments along the rajakaluves and SWDs and asked the BBMP to identify and take action against such encroachments.
“We don’t want only jelly fishes, we want sharks. You start taking action and we are with you,” the court said, indicating that the authorities should also catch bigger encroachers.
The bench asked the BBMP to identify large encroachers in a month’s time and further asked it to inform about the follow-up action initiated.
The BBMP counsel informed the court that action has been initiated in about 300 instances of such encroachments. The court also suggested that BBMP should come up with a mechanism to identify and prevent encroachments.
BBMP chief engineer (SWDs) Munikrishna, submitted an affidavit based on the directions issued by the court in the previous hearing.
The affidavit stated that nearly 300 instances of encroachments of SWDs had been removed in the recent past by the BBMP. The process of removing the encroachments was under progress, the affidavit added.
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