NEW DELHI: A large number of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) are feeling let down by the latest directions of the Supreme Court on the sealing front. Many of them fear that a blank cheque has been given to the Government to do pretty much as it wanted through the conduit of the new Master Plan for Delhi.

Many residents felt there was clearly a major rethink at the judicial level and it cannot be ignored that considerable pressure was built upon the Court in post Seelampur incidents.

"Our hope was that irrespective of the incidents and the pressure, the Court would seek a fresh way to resolve the endemic problems of Delhi by putting the fate of the city in the hands of a group of qualified planners rather than tired bureaucrats who are influenced by the political dispensation of the day," said Sanjay Kaul of People's Action NGO.

Residents have felt particularly anguished by the fact that the court has technically allowed the notifications -- a modus operandi many feel that was designed to blunt the earlier court orders --through.

"I am afraid the message that is going out is that the Government of the day was right and it was the court that was unreasonable," said Wing Commander J.S. Chadha of the Kailash Hills RWA Federation.

"The only reasonable positive is the rationalisation of the professional category but that too is an ad hoc development. We do not know when we will be rescued from this constant band-aid, ad hoc-ism," said Amit Mehra of the Photographer's Guild of India.

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