A division bench headed by Y.K. Sabharwal asked the Delhi government's chief secretary, principal secretary (Home), municipal commissioner, chairperson, New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi's chief fire officer to file affidavits within four weeks on a public interest litigation (PIL) as they failed to submit the same after the issuance of notices on May 28 by the court.

The PIL, filed by lawyer B.L. Wadhera alleged that the DFS was not enforcing the rules and guidelines in respect of high rise buildings since only 527 of the 1200 such buildings had the fire safety clearance.

The government counsel wanted the petition to be clubbed with that of the Uphaar cinema case contending that the issues were the same in both the petitions.

However, Wadhera opposed such a move pointing out that his PIL was on the general deterioration of the fire services and the non-performace of certain statutory obligation by the DFS while the Uphaar petition dealt with a particular case.

The petitioner drew the court's attention towards the fire hazards in the Capital and said it could be gauged from the fact that last year 5,853 incidents of fire took place in which 248 human lives were lost and property worth Rs 18 crore was destroyed.

He said though the Delhi Fire Safety Act provides for a sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of Rs 15,000 if the fire safety rules continued to be flouted, the DFS had miserably failed to do its legal duty. Quoting from the audit report on the department, Wadhera said the DFS was not agile as its squads on an average took 40 to 64 minutes more in reaching a trouble spot than that prescribed in its rule book.

He said as per the report, 51 per cent of water tenders, 66 per cent of trailer pumps, 75 per cent of the carbon dioxide foam crash tenders, 53 per cent of water brousers and 83 per cent of the DFS's ambulances stood condemned on fitness grounds as on march 31, 1997.

The petitioner further alleged that the DFS had spent about Rs 1.20 crore on purchasing various types of equipment which remained idle, thus causing an unnecessary burden on the exchequer.

The matter would come up for the next hearing on January 12.