People in slums lack clean water, you daydreaming about cycle tracks: SC

States do not have money to provide affordable housing and people don't have clean water to drink and you are daydreaming about cycle tracks, the Supreme Court said on Monday, 10 February, while refusing to hear a plea.

A bench of justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan was hearing a plea for the creation of separate cycle tracks in the country when it told the petitioner that one needed to get their priorities right and underlined the need to give attention to other "more urgent issues".

"Go to the slums, find out what in what condition people are staying. States do not have money to provide affordable housing and we are daydreaming. People do have basic amenities, you are day dreaming that there should be cycle tracks," it said.

The bench went on to observe, "Our priorities are going wrong. We have to get our priorities right. We should be more worried about Article 21 of the Constitution. People don't have clean water to drink. Government schools are closing down and you want cycle tracks?"

The PIL filed by cycling promoter Davinder Singh Nagi sought nationwide creation of cycle tracks with his counsel contending that several states had cycle tracks.

He said there was a cycle track even outside one of the gates of the apex court.

The petitioner's counsel referred to the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation scheme focusing on development of basic infrastructure in selected cities and towns.