By IANS,
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to provide a permanent alternative shelter to the homeless who were using a facility near Jama Masjid before it was demolished in 2003.
The division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said: “Till the shelter home is constructed, the Urban Shelter Improvement Board (USIB) is directed to find a building (near the place of the erstwhile shelter home) where the homeless people can be accommodated.”
The bench took up the matter for hearing on its own initiative on the basis of media reports highlighting the plight of the homeless after the demolition.
The shelter home was pulled down in 2003 at Meena Bazar near Jama Masjid as part of a beautification drive.
“We direct the USIB to construct a shelter home at a nearby place where the earlier one was situated,” said the bench, adding that a temporary shelter put up for them should not be removed.
The court directed the MCD to provide basic amenities, including water, in some of the shelter homes in the city.