As the entire north India shivers under the impact of severe cold wave conditions in view of heavy snow falls in hills, the Supreme Court on Monday pulled up several states of the region for “failing” to implement its two-year-old order for building night shelter to the poor in major cities and towns, including Delhi.
Citing the reported death of several persons due to cold sweeping the entire northern plain after heavy snow fall in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand, a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandrai and Dipak Misra issued fresh direction to implement the order.
While assessing the progress reports of states of Delhi, Uttrakhand, UP, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana, which were feeling the impact of the cold, all these state barring Himachal were found lacking in implementing the directions.
Himachal had the distinction of not having any “homeless” person, the state’s report that there was no requirement of night shelter, was accepted by the top court.
Earlier, J&K also had identical submission that no homeless person sleeping in the open was found in the state and therefore, it need not to build any night shelter.
Other states were put to task for either not implementing the order of handing over the job to the NGOs and then blaming them for failing to come up with the requirement of parameters fixed by the court.
“Why don’t you do it yourself? Why it be left to NGOs,” the bench asked while issue fresh direction to the states of Delhi, UP, Uttrakhand, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana to put in place permanent as well as temporary night shelters listed against their name with basic minimum facilities of water, power, bedding and toilets.