Officials in dock for dumping waste in lake

LUCKNOW: Expressing deep anguish on the dumping of municipal solid waste in an ancient lake situated in the Smriti Upvan, a memorial constructed in the memory of Kargil war martyrs on Kanpur Road, the high court on Wednesday directed parade of top officials of the Mayawati government.

The division bench, comprising Justice Pradeep Kant and Justice Ved Pal, summoned the vice-chairman of Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) and municipal commissioner on Friday to explain the apathy and disrespect shown to the memorial, a project undertaken by former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2006.

Irked at the functioning of LDA, the judges passed strong remark against it saying that "it has made the capital city a mess". The judges wanted to know from the state government as to who was the exact authority responsible for the dumping in the ancient lake.

The orders came on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition preferred by 1971 war Veer Chakra awardee Lieutenant Colonel (retd) RP Chaturvedi and Colonel (retd) Satyaveer Singh Yadav. Samajwadi Party leader and senior lawyer Virendra Bhatia, assisted by IP Singh, argued that the present government in an autocratic manner was adamant on destroying the ancient Akhal Lake' situated within the ‘Smriti Upvan' set up in the memory of Kargil war martyrs.

Bhatia said that the lake was being levelled up with municipal solid waste ignoring the fact that it might harm the quality of ground water. The PIL, which was based on a news item published in the September 6 edition of ‘The Times of India', pleaded that the state government was ignoring the contribution of Kargil martyrs by dumping garbage at the spot dedicated to their memory.

TOI