New Delhi: Irked over the closure of 84 temporary night shelters in the national capital against its orders, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the city government to reopen them immediately.
Directing the government to restart the shelters, a division bench of acting Chief Justice AK Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw pulled up the Delhi government for shutting down the night shelters citing low occupancy. The judges also directed the government to equip the night shelters with all basic facilities.
The direction of the High Court came a day after the Supreme Court ordered all state governments to provide night shelters in order to ensure that no person died of the cold.
The court rejected the contention of the Delhi government that a majority of the night shelters in the capital were lying unused and there was no need to construct further shelters. The shelters had been shut down in summer.
The court maintained that in view of the increasing population and the cold weather, the city needs one night shelter per lakh population.
"A total of 186 night shelters have to be in the city to meet the requirements," the bench said.
The counsel appearing for the Delhi government had contended that though the existing 64 permanent night shelters had the capacity of accommodating 12,000 people, the occupancy has been merely 2,000.
The counsel said the government was also planning to construct 46 additional permanent night shelters against the proposal of only 36 shelters by the NGO that runs night shelters. The government counsel submitted that crores of rupees was being wasted on the maintenance and upkeep of the night shelters.
While issuing the directions, the court criticized the government for closing down the temporary night shelters in violation of its previous order in August this year.
"How can the government close the temporary night shelters despite clear cut directions of this court," the judges remarked and directed the authorities to restart the 84 night shelters.
The court's order came on the petition of the NGO that runs the night shelters that the government had stopped funding them and virtually forcing them to shut down the facilities.
The high court had August 9 declined the city government's plea to shut down temporary night shelters and directed an MCD panel to suggest ways of improving their upkeep.
It had also granted liberty to the government to take action against the NGOs or discontinue their services in case they failed to act responsibly. The bench had taken a suo motu cognizance on the basis of media reports about the demolition of a night shelter in December 2010 and the civic bodies doing nothing to protect the homeless from the biting cold.
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