The high court on Thursday set a week’s deadline for submission of a concrete plan to keep the city clean.

Expressing its displeasure over non-compliance of its orders, a division bench of Patna High Court admonished four top officials, including urban development department principal secretary S. Siddharth.

“Tell us something concrete (plan of action with regard to keeping the city clean) in an affidavit by July 5 and do not talk like your predecessors who gave umpteen assurances to the court for keeping the city clean but nothing happened,” the division bench of Justice Navin Sinha and Justice Vikash Jain told Siddharth.

Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner Kuldip Narayan, Patna district magistrate N. Saravana Kumar and superintendent of police (traffic) Jayant Kant were also present as the court had directed the four officials last Friday to be present personally for the next hearing.

They were also asked to explain why the court’s order was not complied with.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Sunil Kumar who had sought directions to the authorities concerned for taking action to get the Bahadurpur and Hanuman Nagar areas free from waterlogging.

Later, the court expanded the ambit of the petition and several civic issues were included.

“We are not satisfied with the PMC’s performance at all. We are quite disappointing to note that the PMC is saying that they are not concerned of what the high court is saying,” the court observed during the hearing.

Stating that the PMC is openly flouting its order not to cart garbage during daytime as it creates traffic jam, the court directed Kant to ensure that its orders are also complied with to ease out congestion on roads.

“Will you exercise powers under sections 69 and 70 of the Police Act, 2007 if vehicles are parked on roads? What will you do if you see the corporation vehicles are carting the garbage, thus creating a road jam? Make sure that the court’s orders are implemented properly,” the court observed.

According to provisions of sections 69 and 70 of the Police Act 2007, the police can impose a penalty on persons who park their vehicles on roads. “If we reach court late, a suo motu action (of contempt) would be taken against you,” the bench told Kant.

Directing the PMC commissioner to give details of its staff structure, the court said: “We do not expect you (PMC commissioner) to be present everywhere in the city as who is doing what.”

When the petitioner’s counsel, S.N. Pathak, and advocate Shambhu Sharan Singh tried to show some of the photos depicting garbage littering in areas in front of the high court, GPO roundabout, Boring Road, Kadamkuan, Lohianagar among others, the court observed: “We all are citizens of this city. We are aware of the problems and trying to solve it (problem) here.”