Ravi S. Dhavan, J. - (1.) THE proceedings today are as a result of the order of 7th August, 1990, when this court found that certain schemes to be executed by the local administration regarding civic amenities are being bogged down as a result of in coordination as the bureaucracy who have to execute the schemes cannot come together on one common table. The schemes are municipal but the execution is, it appears not being municipalised. A long span of a void in local self -government in this State lost the synchronization between citizens forgot their civic rights (obligations included) and the officials who are slow to abdicate the style of raj as if local administration had better be without citizens' participation. Two aspects which were engaging the attention of the court are municipal water supply (drinking water) and its production, supply and distribution and encroachment by hawkers or vendors which has resulted in virtually choking Kamla Nehru Road running near the Lakshmi Talkies, Katra crossing where a vegetable market has sprung up, on the road itself.
(2.) THESE cases have been pending now for three years and a solution to this civic problem has been eluding the court, the local administration has been evading the solution. Initially these public interest litigations were not relished by the local administration. There was always an attempt to scuttle it, not realising that the issues will not disappear One aspect in both the problems is common. Public roads have been encroached upon, and the local administration has not discouraged it. It has used public roads to encourage tahbazari on it, the situation has now got out of hand and the public roads are choked. It has used roads to put public utilities, by following the path of least effort in locating it anywhere else. Forgetting the right of a citizen to question bad and illegal planning on style of who are you to question as attitude, a repeated pointer by the court to the provisions of Chapter VI -A of the Constitution of India and reference to certain Supreme Court decisions on environment and the concept of the road brought around the local administration to review what it has done, in a spirit of enquiry and reform and conform to the law The opposite parties, the State or local administration had been indicated by the court that the Supreme Court had made the law very clear. The road is for passage only and nothing will come on it by encroachment whether shop keepers or public utility services. In any case if there is to be excel lance of urban planning there is no place for obstructions on roads. No matter what the object or the activity may be, and there is no separate law for this for individuals and the State. It has taken a long time for the local administration to come to terms with this concept, at least, before this court in the matters listed before it but the purpose of today's proceedings were different. It is now accepted and not registered by the opposite parties included, that the road is not to be obstructed.
(3.) THE subject -matter of two writ petitions were activities on the road as a common subject, but thereafter, for solution the similarity ceases in the two writ petitions.;