Supreme Court directs Centre for surveillance on highways to curb illegal encroachments

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to constitute surveillance teams for regular highway patrols to inspect and collect data regarding unauthorised encroachments.

A bench led by Justice Abhay S Oka issued a slew of directions to the Centre concerning illegally occupied highway lands. It directed the Highway Administration, under the National Highways (Land and Traffic) Act, 2002 and the Highway Administration Rules, 2004, to formulate a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for constituting inspection teams tasked with monitoring National Highways and collecting data on unauthorised occupation of highway land.

Additionally, the court directed the Union of India to establish surveillance teams comprising state police or other forces to ensure regular and timely highway patrolling. The court directed that compliance with both directives be reported within three months from the date of the order. “The duty of the surveillance teams will be to do patrolling regularly and punctually. Even this compliance shall be reported within a period of three months from today”, the bench stated in its judgement.

The court was dealing with PIL that flagged the issue of illegal encroachments on highway lands, the removal of which is pertinent for the safety of traffic on the highways. The court had earlier issued directions for removing such encroachments to the Central Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

In its verdict pronounced on Wednesday, the court noted that the Centre’s Highway Administration has launched a mobile application, ‘Rajmargyatra’, for the public to report incidents and hazards related to the Highways. Thus, it directed the Centre to give wide publicity to the said mobile application on print, electronic, and social media.

“Information about the availability of this mobile application shall be displayed prominently at toll and food plazas on Highways”, the court stated. The court also directed the Highway Administration to provide details of complaints received via the ‘Rajmargyatra’ app, particularly those about unauthorised highway land occupation, and the actions taken.

It also directed the NHAI to report on creating a grievance redressal portal for such complaints. The court listed the matter seeking compliance of the said authorities on September 15, this year. (ANI)