A public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed in the Madras High Court complained that the roads in Chennai and its suburbs had become the fiefdom of motorists and the pedestrians were treated as a non-entity, with utter disregard for the threat posed to their lives by the speeding motor vehicles.
A summer vacation Bench of Justices P.T. Asha and N. Senthilkumar on Thursday directed a government counsel to ensure that a counter affidavit was filed by the authorities concerned within two weeks. S. Devadoss Gandhi Wilson, 60, a driving school proprietor from Valasaravakkam, had filed the PIL petition.
In his affidavit, the petitioner stated that most of the pavements on the main roads in the city had been occupied either by shopkeepers or hawkers, with the pedestrians, especially senior citizens, schoolchildren, and the disabled, being left with very little space to walk safely and without any hindrance.
