HC takes up DC news report as suo motu PIL, issues notice to authorities

HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Thursday took suo motu cognisance of a Deccan Chronicle news report titled ‘Hyderabad not defecation free: scores of women have no toilet’ published on June 28 as a PIL (via writ petition). The news report detailed deplorable living conditions at Sanjay Gandhi Nagar of Naubat Pahad, where residents are forced to defecate in the open due to a lack of water connections to toilets.

A two-judge PIL bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N. Tukaramji asked the state government to respond to the report on a lack of operational toilets in the city after Justice T. Vinod Kumar had brought the news item to the attention of the bench.

The action comes after Justice Vinod Kumar opined that the state ignored the fundamental point that citizens shall lead dignified lives. Feeling that “our so-called developed society ignored the plights of the women”, Justice Vinod Kumar wrote a letter to Ujjal Bhuyan so that the “court can step in to protect the dignity of the women, as the courts are guardians of the fundamental rights of the citizens”.

In the communique, Justice Vinod Kumar mentioned that Sanjay Gandhi Nagar, where people are forced to defecate in the open, is just a 10-minute walkable distance from the welfare state’s seat of power. “However, the plight of the women has been ignored by the state machinery, who diplomatically evade taking action on representations,” he noted.

Responding to Justice Vinod Kumar's letter along with the DC news item, Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan directed the High Court registry to convert the news article to a suo motu PIL and list it on Thursday.

The bench then issued notices to the Principal Secretary of MA&UD and the GHMC commissioner, directing them to respond to the content of the newspaper report and furnish details of the actual situation.

The bench granted authorities time till August 8 to apprise the court of steps to be taken to deal with the situation.