The Supreme Court wants Delhi Police to remove thousands of junked cars parked at police stations
The Supreme Court has given the Delhi Police a few weeks to come up with a plan to see how the thousands of cars found junked outside their police stations across the city can be moved. Most Delhi police stations are in the heart of residential and commercial areas, so the tens to sometimes hundreds of vehicles parked outside each police station can create some severe traffic congestion problems. However, many of the parked cars there are not people disposing their ancient cars there but often is case property. Some cars are stolen property after they have been recovered, others have been involved in accidents, occasionally fatal ones. DDA has some spare land close to Delhi and the creation of a large yard for impounded vehicles is a must. The lack of such a space has led to thousands of illegal, dangerously ill-maintained and old polluting vehicles running in the city as the authorities’ hands are tied. Simultaneously, the labyrinthine judicial process means that cars impounded due to their involvement in criminal or accident cases often rot outside police stations. A secure, proper car yard would help in the storage of such vehicles. Delhi police has few options but to impound cars in some cases but lacking yards it cannot do much.
This is not just a problem in Delhi but across the country. Sometimes cars parked outside police stations become celebrity cars in themselves. The Toyota land Cruiser involved in an accident with Salman Khan allegedly driving the car in Mumbai was a huge tourist attraction outside Bandra police station. Cars that are not reclaimed within a certain period, such as stolen cars recovered after insurance has been paid out, should be sold if they are in working order and the funds raised from that should be used to run the junkyard.