Delhi: Sealing unlikely to resume on Friday

NEW DELHI: Sealing of commercial establishments in residential areas of the capital is unlikely to resume on Friday because of difficulties on the ground in carrying out the drive even as the MCD was asked by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee to re-start the action.

While a Group of Ministers (GoM), who met to discuss the vexed issue, indicated it was unlikely that the sealing will start from Friday in view of the tense situation, the MCD remained non-committal on whether it would abide by the court panel's direction.

After reviewing the matter in its meeting, the three-member apex court panel wrote to the civic body to resume the drive against illegal shops operating in residential areas from Friday.

"The MCD will approach the Supreme Court tomorrow and appraise it of the difficulties on the ground in carrying out sealing in the present tense situation," Union Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy told reporters after the GoM meeting.

He said both the MCD and police are of the opinion that it is difficult to carry out sealing in Delhi in the current tense situation.

Besides, he said, there were two major Sikh festivals falling on the weekend, which will also be brought to the notice of the court.

However, to a specific query whether the sealing drive will resume from tomorrow, he said, "you can draw your own inference from what I have said."

The GoM, chaired by Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, was told by the police that the situation in the capital continued to be tense and it would be difficult to carry out sealing for the time being.

While there was no official word from the MCD regarding its plans on resuming the drive, at least eight of the 12 Zonal Deputy Commissioners, when contacted, said they had not been issued any directions on carrying out sealing till late in the evening.

They said the sealing teams, consisting of an assistant engineer, junior engineer and two other officials, were ready and they could be on the streets within a short notice.

"We have not sought police security for our teams as we were not told that the drive will begin tomorrow," a Deputy Commissioner said.

Meanwhile, the Monitoring Committee had asked the MCD to carry out sealing on only one out of the 185 roads said to face the axe, to begin with when they would have resumed the action tomorrow.

The sealing drive was earlier scheduled to re-start on November 1st and was deferred by the monitoring committee for one day and it was again put off till Friday.