Madhya Pradesh High Court Directs State & Municipal Corporation To File Compliance Report on Road Safety Policy, 2015

The Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered the State and Gwalior Municipal Corporation [GMC] to submit a compliance report to the Madhya Pradesh State Road Safety Policy, 2015.

A Division Bench of Justice Sheel Nagu and Deepak Kumar Agarwal was hearing a petition alleging failure to maintaining and leveling the roads with a lack of adequately lighting of the public streets in important locations of Gwalior, leading to severe road safety concerns.

Filed through Advocate Siddharth Sijoria, the petition states,

"The failure of the civic bodies to carry out its statutory duties to secure to the public means of communication in good and proper condition is a gross violation of Fundamental Rights guaranteed under the Constitution."

It relies on Sudhir Madan and Others v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Others, where the Karnataka High Court held that the citizens have a fundamental right to use the roads, parks, and other public conveniences provided by the State. If the streets or footways are in bad condition, the citizens are deprived of the effective use of the same, thereby infringing their constitutional rights. If roads are not in good condition or not sufficiently lighted or if the same is full of potholes, they expose the citizens to grave danger.

Emphasizing the bad condition of roadways in Gwalior, rendering it more prone to accidents, the petition referred to the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Program of IIT Delhi (2020), which reveals that Gwalior has recorded to have 50 % higher fatality rate per 100,000 persons than average for all the cities in 2018.

On examining the earlier replies of the State and the Municipal Corporation, the Court noted that both the Corporation and State Government are shifting responsibilities on one another. It remarked,

"The return of the Corporation, inter alia, reveals that out of six roads mentioned in P-3, five are maintained by the PWD and not the Corporation. It is only the road running adjacent to the office of EOW which the Corporation admits to being maintained by it. On the other hand, the reply of the State shifts the responsibility upon the Municipal Corporation, Gwalior stating that it is the Corporation which is liable to maintain the roads within the town of Gwalior."

It directed that the response should be filed in regard to each and every aspect of the said policy to enable the Court to ascertain as to whether the said policy is being implemented to the hilt or not.

The matter is now listed in the second week of November.

Title: Abhishek Singh Parmar v. Gwalior Municipal Corporation Thr. & Ors.

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