The Bombay High Court on Monday (June 29) sharply criticised the the Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner (BMC) over its failure to resolve the issue of poor roads in Mumbai for the last 20 years.

A division bench of Justice Ajay Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata said it's high time that the BMC must "wake up" to reality and finally put an end to the issue of bad roads and potholed roads in the city.

"A person coming from Dahisar to Fort, had to experience hundreds of bumps during the trip. What is this? BMC has to wake up... It's been more than 2 decades now. Justice Lodha had passed order in 2006 and we are in 2026 now. Situation of roads continue to be the same. What are you doing? Every year this issue crops up and you come here giving some or the other explanations or reasons. What attitude is this? There are roads constructed across the world in major cities. You should go and see those roads. They have scientifically constructed roads and one can easily speed upto 100 kmph without experiencing a single bump. BMC must wake up now," a visibly enraged Justice Khata remarked.

Weighing in, Justice Gadkari remarked that the situation in Thane has been worse than Mumbai even though it was a bit good earlier.

To this, Justice Khata, added, "That too was because Justice (Abhay) Oka used to travel daily from his residence in Thane to Fort, that they maintained roads."

The bench made the observations after BMC counsel Joel Carlos told the judges that the civic body is making all endeavours to ensure safety of the citizens by ensuring no untoward incident takes place due to bad or potholed roads or because of open manholes.

The bench during the hearing noted that the BMC failed to comply with the issue of installing "protective grills" beneath the metal lids of manholes on the streets of Mumbai. The judges were told that the BMC has completed installing such grills in over 70,000 manholes but was yet to put such grills on more than 3,000 manholes.

After going through the data placed on record, the judges made it clear that they are only concerned with the fact that there must not be any untoward incident in the city because of manholes.

"You just make a statement that this year due to manholes no human life will be lost. We are only concerned with the loss of human lives in the past due to open manholes. We don't want to see your data or your budget or your compliance. Just make a statement that this year no citizen will die," Justice Gadkari remarked.

As regards the viral video of a BMC officer falling into an alleged open manhole just in front of Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde, last week, the civic body counsel clarified that it was not an open manhole.

"There was a huge rush because the Mayor was inspecting the sites and an officer mistakenly stepped into a water pumping station and fell into it. That was not an open manhole as is being projected. Had it been so, that officer would have fell deep into it. We have such pumping stations across Mumbai where water is pumped. So that isn't a case of open manhole," Carlos told the judges.

During the hearing, the judges also sought to know if the App for registering complaints with respect to open manholes and potholes is functional. The civic body said it will be filing a further affidavit with respect to the functioning of the App and would also provide photographic evidence of the complaints attended and resolved by the BMC officers.

The judges have also asked the civic body to provide details of FIRs lodged over instances of theft of the metal lids of manholes.

With regards to a grievance raised by the PIL petitioner lawyer Ruju Thakkar, that a doctor, who died last year after falling into a manhole, his family is yet to receive the mandatory Rs 6 lakhs compensation as was ordered by then bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere.

Irked over this, the judges criticised the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) Commissioner for being "casual" about the death of the doctor.

"Is your commissioner so casual about someone's death that he doesn't even have 20 minutes to conduct a meeting of the Committee for sanctioning the compensation amount? This is such a serious issue, what is your Commissioner busy with? There are so many other ways to conduct a meeting now... He can take help of Zoom App too. Now, next Monday, tell us that the compensation is paid. We do not want to hear any excuse on this," Justice Gadkari made it clear.

The bench has now adjourned the matter for further hearing till Monday (July 6).