A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to consider shifting or temporarily closing nine toll plazas to ease traffic at Delhi’s borders. The MCD has been given one week to decide.
The Court refused to interfere with the Delhi government’s order closing schools for students from nursery to class 5, noting that the winter break is approaching and that the directive to close these schools does not require any modification.
“The short-term measures are only to provide temporary protection to children and elderly persons. These are purely interim policy decisions. At best, they can be viewed as an extension of vacations, as schools are anyway scheduled to remain closed for 10 to 15 days during the winter,” the Bench said.
On labour welfare, the SC directed the Delhi government to verify construction workers sitting idle due to restrictions and transfer money to their accounts. “It should not be that money transferred to workers’ accounts ‘disappears, travels to another account’,” the Court observed, adding that alternative work should be considered for idle workers.
According to the Delhi government, only 7,000 of the 2.5 lakh construction workers have been verified for direct payments so far.
The Bench emphasised that temporary measures like school closures or hybrid classes are interim solutions and cannot replace long-term planning to curb pollution in the region. “Let us think of pragmatic and practical solution of the menace,” the Court said.