Smita Kumari Rajgarhia vs Govt. Of Nct Of Delhi

$~60
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ W.P.(C) 14517/2024

Date of Decision: 25.02.2026

IN THE MATTER OF:

SMITA KUMARI RAJGARHIA .....Petitioner

Through: Mr. Vakul Sharad Sharma, Advocate.


versus


GOVT. OF NCT OF DELHI .....Respondent

Through: Mr Sameer Vashisht, Standing
Counsel (Civil) GNCTD
Ms. Harshita Nathrani, Advocate
(Court Commissioner).


CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE PURUSHAINDRA KUMAR KAURAV
J U D G E M E N T

PURUSHAINDRA KUMAR KAURAV, J. (ORAL)

1. The matter relates to the grievance of the petitioner for maintenance
and upkeep of female washrooms/ toilets of Saket District Court Complex.
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 1 of 8

However, the scope of the petition was expanded by the Court vide its order
dated 16.10.2024. The Court has also appointed Ms. Harshita Nathrani,
Advocate as a Court Commissioner for carrying out the inspection and
submission of a report.
2. Ms. Nathrani has submitted the report with respect to all female
washrooms of all Court Complexes. The said report was considered and,
accordingly, certain directions were issued to Public Works Department
(PWD) from time to time. Vide order dated 01.09.2025, the report submitted
by the PWD has also been taken note of. In paragraph nos. 2 to 5, the
following observations have been made.
2. It is assured by the concerned Executive Engineer (PWD), Mr. V.K.
“
Singh, who has joined the proceedings virtually that the aforesaid work for
renovation/ construction of toilet blocks is being expedited, and all
attempts are being made to complete the work as early as possible. He
submits that the work in respect of toilet blocks in Court Building (A and B
wings) at the District Court, Dwarka shall be completed by 30.09.2025.

3. He further submits that the work of toilet in the District Court Complex,
Saket is also being expedited and is expected to be completed by
31.03.2026.

4. The PWD is also directed to ensure upkeep and maintenance of the
existing toilets in the aforesaid court complexes.

5. Let an updated status report be filed within a period of eight weeksfrom
today. Let a status report be also filed as regards the work relating to
renovation/ construction of toilets in the other court complexes as well. Let
the same also be filed within a period of eight weeks from today. The
concerned Bar Association is also directed to file a status report in terms
of paragraph no. 5 of the order dated 10.02.2025, within a period of eight
weeks from today. ”

3. It must be emphasised that the issue before this Court cannot be
viewed as being one of routine maintenance alone. The state of washrooms
in court Complexes bears directly upon the dignity, health and equality of
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 2 of 8

the citizens of this Country. Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees not
merely an animal like existence but a life of dignity.
1
4. In Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Vardichan , the Supreme Court was
called upon to decide whether by affirmative action a Court can compel a
statutory body to carry out its duty to the community by constructing
sanitation facilities at great cost and on a time-bound basis. In the facts of
the said case the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, had issued directions to the
Municipality to construct drain pipes with flow of water to wash filth and
stop the stench caused in the locality. The Supreme Court, speaking through
V.R. Krishna Iyer J., held that statutory authorities are under a binding
obligation to abate insanitary conditions and cannot avoid that duty on
grounds of financial or administrative limitation. Basic sanitation was
treated not as charity but as a responsibility under the Constitution.
Upholding the order of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, the following
pertinent observations were made:
“ 2. The circumstances of the case are typical and overflow the particular
municipality and the solutions to the key questions emerging from the
matrix of facts are capable of universal application, especially in the Third
World humanscape of silent subjection of groups of people to squalor and
of callous public bodies habituated to deleterious inaction. The Ratlam
municipal town, like many Indian urban centres, is populous with human
and subhuman species, is punctuated with affluence and indigence in
contrasting coexistence, and keeps public sanitation a low priority item,
what with cesspools and filth menacing public health. Ward No. 12, New
Road, Ratlam town is an area where prosperity and poverty live as
strange bedfellows. The rich have bungalows and toilets, the poor live on
pavements and litter the streets with human excreta because they use
roadsides as latrines in the absence of public facilities. And the city
fathers being too busy with other issues to bother about the human
condition, cesspools and stinks, dirtied the place beyond endurance which
made the well-to-do citizens protest, but the crying demand for basic
sanitation and public drains fell on deaf ears. Another contributory cause

1
(1980) 4 SCC 162.
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 3 of 8

to the insufferable situation was the discharge from the Alcohol Plant of
malodorous fluids into the public street. In this lawless locale, mosquitoes
found a stagnant stream of stench so hospitable to breeding and
flourishing, with no municipal agent disturbing their stinging music at
human expense. The local denizens, driven by desperation, at long last,
decided to use the law and call the bluff of the municipal body's bovine
indifference to its basic obligations under Section 123 of the M.P.
Municipalities Act, 1961 (the Act, for short).
…
And yet the municipality was oblivious to this obligation towards human
well-being and was directly guilty of breach of duty and public nuisance
and active neglect. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Ratlam, was moved to
take action under Section 133 CrPC to abate the nuisance by ordering the
municipality to construct drain pipes with flow of water to wash the filth
and stop the stench. The Magistrate found the facts proved, made the
direction sought and scared by the prospect of prosecution under Section
188 IPC, for violation of the order under Section 133 CrPC, the
municipality rushed from court to court till, at last, years after, it reached
this Court as the last refuge of lost causes. Had the municipal council and
its executive officers spent half of this litigative zeal on cleaning up the
street and constructing the drains by rousing the
people's sramdan resources and laying out the city's limited financial
resources, the people's needs might have been largely met long ago. But
litigation with other's funds is an intoxicant, while public service for
common benefit is an inspiration; and, in a competition between the two,
the former overpowers the latter. Not where a militant people's will takes
over people's welfare institutions, energises the common human numbers,
canalises their community consciousness, forbids the offending factories
from polluting the environment, forces the affluent to contribute wealth
and the indigent their work and thus transforms the area into a healthy
locality vibrant with popular participation and vigilance, not neglected
ghettos noisy with squabbles among the slimy slum-dwellers nor with
electoral “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
…
19. A strange plea was put forward by the Municipal Council before the
High Court which was justly repelled viz. that the owners of houses had
gone to that locality on their own choice with eyes open and, therefore,
could not complain if human excreta was flowing, dirt was stinking,
mosquitoes were multiplying and health was held hostage. A public body
constituted for the principal statutory duty of ensuring sanitation and
health cannot outrage the Court by such an ugly plea. Luckily, no such
contention was advanced before us. The request for further time for
implementation of the Magistrate's order was turned down by the High
Court since no specific time-limit was accepted by the Municipality for
fulfilment of the directions. A doleful statement about the financial
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 4 of 8

difficulties of the Municipality and the assurance that construction of
drains would be taken up as soon as possible had no meaning. The High
Court observed:
“Such assurances, it appears, are of no avail as unfortunately
these proceedings for petty little things like clearing of dirty water,
closing the pits and repairing of drains have taken more than seven
years and if these seven years are not sufficient to do the needful,
one could understand that by granting some more time it could not
be done.”
The High Court was also right in rejecting the Additional Sessions Judge's
recommendation to quash the Magistrate's order on the impression that
Section 133 CrPC did not provide for enforcement of civic rights.
Wherever there is a public nuisance, the presence of Section 133 CrPC
must be felt and any contrary opinion is contrary to the law. In short, we
have no hesitation in upholding the High Court's view of the law and
affirmation of the Magistrate's order.

20. Before us the major endeavour of the Municipal Council was to
persuade us to be pragmatic and not to force impracticable orders on it
since it had no wherewithal to execute the order. Of course, we agree that
law is realistic and not idealistic and what cannot be performed under
given circumstances cannot be prescribed as a norm to be carried out.
From that angle it may well be that while upholding the order of the
Magistrate, we may be inclined to tailor the direction to make it workable.
But first things first and we cannot consent to a value judgment where
people's health is a low priority. Nevertheless, we are willing to revise the
order into a workable formula the implementation of which would be
watch-dogged by the court.
…
24. We are sure that the State Government will make available by way of
loans or grants sufficient financial aid to the Ratlam Municipality to
enable it to fulfil its obligations under this Order. The State will realise
that Article 47 makes it a paramount principle of governance that steps
are taken for the improvement of public health as amongst its primary
duties”. The Municipality also will slim its budget on low priority items
and elitist projects to use the savings on sanitation and public health. It is
not our intention that the ward which has woken up to its rights alone need
be afforded these elementary facilities. We expect all the wards to be
benefited without litigation. The pressure of the judicial process, expensive
and dilatory, is neither necessary nor desirable if responsible bodies are
responsive to duties. Cappilletti holds good for India when he observes: [
Access to Justice—A World Survey, Vol. 1, ed. by M. Cappelletti and B.
Garth, pp. 123-24]
“Our judicial system has been aptly described as follows:
Admirable though it may be, (it) is at once slow and costly. It is a
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 5 of 8

finished product of great beauty, but entails an immense sacrifice
of time, money and talent.
This „beautiful‟ system is frequently a luxury, it tends to give a high
quality of justice only when, for one reason or another, parties can
surmount the substantial barriers which it erects to most people
and to many types of claims.”
Why drive common people to public interest action? Where directive
principles have found statutory expression in Do's and Dont's the court
will not sit idly by and allow municipal government to become a statutory
mockery. The law will relentlessly be enforced and the plea of poor
finance will be poor alibi when people in misery cry for justice. The
dynamics of the judicial process has a new “enforcement” dimension not
merely through some of the provisions of the criminal procedure code (as
here), but also through activated tort consciousness. The officers-in-
charge and even the elected representatives will have to face the penalty of
the law if what the Constitution and follow up legislation direct them to do
are defied or denied wrongfully. The wages of violation is punishment,
corporate and personal. ”

5. The presence of clean and functional toilet facilities, particularly for
women, is inseparable from dignity and privacy. In Suchita Srivastava v.
2
Chandigarh Administration , the Supreme Court reiterated that personal
dignity and bodily integrity lie at the core of Article 21 of the Constitution.
3
Further, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India , privacy was
recognised as an intrinsic part of life and liberty. Access to safe and hygienic
washrooms in public institutions, including Court complexes, directly
implicates these guarantees.
6. The right to health, recognised as a facet of Article 21 of the
Constitution in Consumer Education and Research Centre v. Union of
4
India , necessarily includes conditions that prevent avoidable disease and
indignity. Sanitation is the threshold of public health. Court complexes are
not merely buildings; rather, they are Constitutional spaces where citizens

2
(2009) 9 SCC 1.
3
(2017) 10 SCC 1.
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 6 of 8

seek justice and where judicial officers, advocates and staff discharge public
functions. The infrastructure of such spaces must reflect the minimum
standards consistent with Constitutional values. The Court is also not
unmindful that inadequate or unhygienic facilities disproportionately affect
women and may operate as a subtle but real barrier to equal participation in
the administration of justice. Equality under Articles 14 and 15 of the
Constitution is not secured by formal declarations alone; it requires
institutional arrangements that accommodate basic biological realities. Clean
and accessible washrooms are, therefore, to be considered not as peripheral
amenities but foundational requirements of a functional justice system.
7. The Court has been assured by the PWD that all necessary steps have
been taken in furtherance of the order dated 01.09.2025; and further that the
PWD will ensure that the female washrooms of all Court Complex remain
clean and hygienic.
8. Recording the aforesaid assurance on behalf of the PWD, at this stage,
the writ petition stands disposed of. Liberty is granted to the petitioner to file
a fresh writ petition, if so warranted by subsequent circumstances.
9. However, before approaching this Court, the petitioner shall at first
instance approach the concerned Principal District Judge of respective Court
Complex. Upon such representation being made, the concerned Principal
District Judge shall look into the grievance and pass appropriate
administrative directions to the PWD and Bar Associations in accordance
with law.
10. The Court also appreciates the conscientious and diligent work of Ms.
Harshita Nathrani, who undertook a comprehensive analysis, and submitted

4
(1995) 3 SCC 42.
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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
W.P.(C) 14517/2024 Page 7 of 8

her report, which in turn has assisted the Court to resolve the present issue.



PURUSHAINDRA KUMAR KAURAV, J
FEBRUARY 25, 2026
aks/ss.

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Signed
By:PURUSHAINDRA
KUMAR KAURAV
Signed By:AMIT KUMAR
SHARMA
Signing Date:28.02.2026
13:00:44
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