RAJINDER NAGAR WELFARE ASSN Vs. DELHI WATER BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 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 developmentï¿ 1/2 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.) 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 is urged by him that due to large logistics shortage of manpower and supply of meters, large number of consumers are not paying for actual consumption of water. It is his further submission that while most of the consumers do not have the meter as a consequence of which the Board is charging them on an average of 20 Kiloliters to 30 Kiloliters per month depending upon the area in question. The said charges approximately ranges between Rs.150.00 to 200.00. Learned counsel would contend that the consumers drawing water from the Board network are under obligation to pay for the actual consumption but the said amount is not being collected by the Board because of the non-installation of the meters. Mr.Pushkarna, further propounded that it is obligatory on the part of the citizens to co-operate and not to consume the water as a result of which the network of the Board suffers and in the ultimate eventuate enormous loss is sustained. It is put forth by him that even if the Board supplies meters, the consumers are to pay for the same but a situation has emerged that the Board is not in a position to supply but is prepared to permit the consumers to install the same.