RWAs welcome SC verdict

New Delhi, Nov 6 (UNI) Resident Welfare Associations across the capital reacted with relief at the upholding of the verdict against sealing, saying it will protect the sanctity of law.

''The recent events involving city-wide disturbances had pitted the judiciary against the combined might of political groups, the state and the centre,'' said Mr Sanjay Kaul, President of People's Action, an advocacy group that represented RWAs of Delhi. Coming down heavily on the Centre and the state government for their pusillanimous response to the three-day strike, RWA representatives said the coordinated plan between the two to pressurise the courts was so obvious, it was bound to fail to appeal to the SC.

''The GoM has to explain what its role has been so far except telling us that the might of the Indian state was not good enough to execute the orders of the apex court,'' said URJA's East Delhi coordinator Rakesh Dokwal.

RWAs were particularly peeved at the manner in which political party cadres extended support to the strikes and inconvenienced lakhs of Delhi residents under the garb of a trader's strike.

''We continue to maintain that traders are members of RWAs in most colonies and as such their difficulties are an issue of concern for us as well,'' Mr Kaul said.

''However, the way around it is to create conditions for them to be relocated with dignity and profit before they are subjected to painful dislocations, not that the CM, the MoUD and the entire administrative machinery joins the chorus to defeat the SC order in one way or the other,'' he added.

General Secretary of East of Kailash Federation of RWAs Wg Cdr (retd) Chadda said, ''This has been going on for the last 11 months and if the Delhi government and the Centre have no idea about how to solve this issue they should simply resign.'' ''The events of the last one year are a blot on the collective quality of governance in Delhi and the Centre stands to explain why it fell in with the machinations of the state government whose intentions were always suspect faced as it was with the MCD elections in February.'' ''It is particularly sad that a government headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a GoM headed by the Home Minister acquitted themselves so poorly on an issue of Constitutional propriety. It will be remembered that the union and Delhi governments colluded to dismantle a court's direction simply for political profit and exhibited the greatest bankruptcy of ideas to resolve a problem seen in recent times,'' said V N Bali of Ram Vihar RWA.

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