HYDERABAD: A bench of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday heard a taken-up PIL highlighting the dangers of parking of heavy vehicles on national highways (NHs) and issued notices to the Ministry of Surface Transport (National Highways), and various departments of the State government seeking their response within six weeks.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice NV Shravan Kumar, converted a letter sent by D Nagaraju, a mason from Nizamabad, on September 23, into a PIL. In his letter, Nagaraju raised concerns over the rampant illegal parking of heavy vehicles on national highways which he said led to a significant number of accidents and loss of life.
Nagaraju narrated in the letter how his nine-year-old daughter D Vaibhavi suffered head injuries and died and he and his wife Rekha sustained fractures in both their legs when his bike rammed into a parked lorry on NH-44 while they were going from Kamareddy to Nizamabad on December 19 in 2021.
The letter also brought to the attention of the court another tragic incident in which three engineering students travelling in an SUV met with a fatal accident on the Hyderabad-Karimnagar highway due to illegal parking of a heavy vehicle on the road.
In response to these incidents and safety concerns raised by Nagaraju, the high court directed the secretary of the Ministry of Surface Transport (National Highways), the Telangana chief secretary, the secretary of the Transport, Roads and Buildings (R&B) department, the Commissioner of Transport, the Chief Engineer of Roads and Buildings, the Principal Secretary, Home, and the DGP to respond to the concerns raised by Nagaraju within six weeks.