[Dengue outbreak] Amend laws to increase fine on people who enable mosquitoes to breed: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the State government to initiate the process of amending its bylaws to increase fines that can be imposed on people who enable mosquitoes to breed in their premises by not keeping the surroundings clean and allowing water to stagnate [Court on its own motion v Government of NCT of Delhi and Ors]. .The bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh also directed the three municipal corporations as well as cantonment board and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to form task forces headed by its senior officials to deal with the menace of mosquito breeding in their respective areas..The directions came in a suo motu petition initiated to deal with the rising cases of dengue and other mosquito related diseases in the national capital.The Court was told that according to the corporations’ bylaws the maximum penalty its officials can impose on the violators who are found to be not cleaning their premises is ₹500 which is a meager amount and therefore, they need more teeth to deal with offenders. The counsel appearing for the corporations also submitted that a meeting has been held and there is a proposal to increase the fine to ₹10,000-20,000 which will need sanction of the government and assembly..The Bench held that the steps taken by the local bodies were obviously not sufficient to stop mosquito infestation in the city and therefore a protocol should be evolved so that actual site visits can be undertaken by its officials and a mechanism devised so that the entire exercise is not reduced to something with no results to show for.During the course of the hearing, the judges also pulled up the authorities for their apparent failure in dealing with the infestation which has resulted in near doubling of Dengue cases in the city.“It is a regular cycle. It is not something that we cannot anticipate. How can the numbers double? You are saying you are taking all these measures then where is the proof of pudding. You say unprecedented rains, you say there is inflow from NCR. What is the administration doing,” Justice Singh said..As the counsel appearing for the municipal corporations tried to submit that a major reason for mosquito infestation was the inaction on part of authorities of National Capital Region, the Bench responded that if this submission were to be accepted then there would be no mosquitoes in Central Delhi.“If you tell us everything else is fine and mosquitoes are only coming from outside the city then in parts of Central Delhi then there will be no problem. This is again an excuse,” the Bench remarked..The Court has also appointed the chairman of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) as the nodal officer on behalf of all the local bodies to comply with its orders and ensure a coordinated exercise. The Bench further directed all the corporations and the Delhi government to file its compliance report by January 14 when the case will be heard next..[Dengue outbreak] Policies are populist, governments scared of losing votes: Delhi High Court