Rainder Nagar Welfare Assn v. Delhi Water Board & Ors

SANJIV KHANNA, J sv

* THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Judgment delivered on: 9th February, 2011 + WP(C) No.5918/2010 RAJINDER NAGAR WELFARE ASSN. .... PETITIONER Through: Mr.Rakesh Kumar Singh and Mr.Shah Alam Khan, Advocates versus DELHI WATER BOARD & ORS. ..... RESPONDENTS Through: Mr.Sumeet Pushkarna and Mr.Jitendra Kumar, Advocates CORAM: HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJIV KHANNA 1. Whether reporters of the local papers be allowed to see the judgment? Yes 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? Yes 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes DIPAK MISRA, CJ Public Interest Litigation, in its denotative contour as well as connotative sweep eschews characteristics of an adversarial litigation and encompasses affirmative facets of public good, endeavours to ameliorate the conditions of the marginalized sections of the society and bestows beneficence through interpretative dynamics on those who deserve. Quite apart from the above, it throws laser beam on issues relating to good governance and attempts to guide the citizens" behaviour in certain fields on the substructure of good governance, economic purity, sustenance of environment and such other spectrums. It, in conceptual essentiality, has an obligation to avoid "personal interest", "publicity interest" and "paise interest" like the plague. Sometimes necessity arises where the court comes across a controversy where it is compelled to remind the citizens their constitutional duty and the obligation because everyone has to bear in mind the age old saying "Right, to its last particle, is duty". The present prefatory note has become necessary as, we are disposed to think, citizens who are consumers cannot make their sense of duty an imaginary one totally ostracizing the idea that "grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development" and the same is not possible without responsible positive participation of the citizens of a civilized nation. The issue before us is whether consumers of water, supplied by the Delhi Jal Board can only complain that they have not been supplied measuring meters on the basis of which they have to pay the charges or they also have the duty to have the meters and pay for their actual accurate consumption, for "accuracy is the twin brother of honesty, inaccuracy, of dishonesty". 2. In the present public litigation, the petitioner, namely, Rajinder Nagar Welfare Association(Regd.) through its General Secretary has made colossal grievance that the Delhi Jal Board (for short, "the Board") has not performed its statutory duty of installing water meters and taken a decision on 29.10.2009 and hence, a writ of certiorari should be issued for quashment of the said decision and further a writ of mandamus be issued commanding the Board to install the water meter of ISI/ISO standard to the respective water consumers forthwith within the National Capital Territory of Delhi and to stock water and avoid any shortage of water meters in future and further not to take any coercive action against the consumers. 3. It is submitted by Mr.Rakesh Kumar Singh, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner association, that it is obligatory on the part of the Board under Section 17 of the Delhi Water Board Act, 1998 (for brevity "the Act") to install the water meters to measure the consumption of water but the Board instead of installing the water meters has issued notices on 20th October, 2009 to the consumers to install a functional water meter within a month under intimation to the Zonal Revenue Officer of the Delhi Jal Board so that the charges of water consumption can be raised against the water connection on the basis of actual consumption. It is urged by Mr.Singh that Delhi Jal Board is resiling from its statutory duty by putting the burden on the citizens. 4. Mr.Sumeet Pushkarna, learned counsel appearing for the Delhi Jal Board, submitted that the Delhi Jal Board has issued notices due to shortage of water meters available with it. It i