New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday asked for the central government’s response on a petition that demanded to consider Delhi-NCR as a single region and sought to open Delhi’s borders with Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Sonipat.
The SC bench comprising justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.R. Shah was hearing a petition filed by Gurgaon resident Rohit Bhalla.
The petitioner, represented by senior advocate Mukul Talwar, challenged the decisions of the Haryana and Uttar Pradesh administrations, asserting it is unconstitutional for them to restrict movement for permissible activities in areas falling within the NCR through “blanket orders of sealing borders without reasonable exceptions”.
He also claimed the decision of the two states violated the home ministry guidelines.
The petition highlighted the practical difficulties being faced by the citizens due to the sealing of the borders, including hampering of industrial operations since people working for these industries travel across the borders.
“Residents of NCR who have family members or loved ones residing on either side of the inter-state border within the NCR are facing harassment in crossing the said inter-state borders in cases of medical emergency, access to hospitals/healthcare professionals and essential needs,” the petition stated.
As an alternative, the petition demanded a “common portal/mechanism” for issuance of movement passes within the NCR region for permissible activities, pointing out that getting passes at the moment usually take around two working days.
This, it said, has led to people from Noida or Gurgaon feeling “helpless” if they wanted to visit a dying or severely sick relative in Delhi.
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According to the court order, the governments of UP and Haryana have filed their responses, but they were not on record.
During the hearing, lawyer for the UP government, Garima Prashad, attributed the state’s reluctance to open up the borders to the high number of Covid-19 cases in Delhi.
She pointed out that the total number of positive cases in Delhi is a little over 11,000, as compared to the 293 cases in Noida.
Should NCR be considered one region?
On whether NCR should be considered as one region, senior advocate Vikas Pahwa told ThePrint while there is no legality involved in this, the NCR should be treated as one region for the purpose of convenience and comfort.
“The night population of Delhi is less than the day population. Lot of people travel to Delhi for work from Sonepat, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Faridabad, and go back at night, just like New York… So therefore, it is so delicately linked that it has to be treated as one place, so that the government can take the decision,” he said.
“The states should cooperate… Being the capital, the adjoining states should cooperate with the Delhi government, so that an appropriate decision can be taken,” he added.
Advocate Aman Bhalla, representing the petitioner in the Supreme Court, pointed out that “Delhi-NCR was envisaged as an extension of the city of Delhi and it has been recognised by an Act of Parliament as one composite unit”.
Sealing of state borders within the Delhi-NCR, therefore, ignores the “interdependence of the region and has been causing immense hardship”, he told ThePrint.
Explaining the impact of the sealing of borders, he added, “It also makes redundant the relaxations given by the MHA with respect to the reopening of industry and private offices since business people, professionals and employees residing in different areas of the NCR having their set-ups in other parts of the NCR are being prevented from restarting their operations.”
“For instance 70 per cent of industries in Sonipat are run by people residing in Delhi but they are unable to restart economic activity due to the border restrictions,” he said.
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