The Orissa High Court has directed civic and state authorities to implement strict, time-bound measures to overhaul Cuttack’s deteriorated road network and drainage systems, declaring that motorable roads are a fundamental constitutional lifeline rather than mere physical infrastructure.
Hearing a long-running suo motu public interest litigation on civic conditions and urban waterlogging, a division bench of Justice K. R. Mohapatra and Justice V. Narasingh expressed hope that recent pledges by top Odisha administrators would finally end years of recurring road failures. The bench observed that administrative compliance affidavits filed since 2020 had consistently failed to yield durable streets, trapping residents in an exhausting sequence of potholes, temporary patching, and subsequent monsoon destruction. The court fixed the next hearing for September 10.
Court Rejects Municipal Progress Claims
The bench refused to accept submissions made by counsel for the Cuttack Municipal Corporation asserting that 70 per cent of the city’s arterial roads were currently in good condition. The judges noted that persistent grievances documented by ward-level advocates’ committees directly contradicted the municipal body’s assessment.
To verify the true condition of the infrastructure, the court ordered the advocates’ committees to carry out on-site inspections across their assigned municipal wards and present comprehensive evaluation reports within seven days.
Administrative Commitments and Immediate Directives
The court’s directions followed an August 27 order requiring the personal attendance of top state officials to explain ongoing infrastructure deficits. During the August 29 proceedings, Additional Chief Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department Usha Padhee and Cuttack Municipal Corporation Commissioner Kirandeep Kaur Sahota attended virtually, while senior representatives from the Works Department and the Roads and Buildings Department appeared in person.
Padhee informed the bench that the state is formulating a comprehensive roadmap covering construction, maintenance, and regular repair work across the city. She added that a detailed project report is under preparation to tackle recurring monsoon waterlogging.
Simultaneously, the special secretary for the Works Department submitted a formal road-repair proposal and undertook to file an affidavit within seven days detailing the specific corrective measures and completion schedules.
Roads as a Fundamental Right
Emphasising the broader legal dimension of civic neglect, the division bench affirmed that public thoroughfares are protected lifelines under the freedom of movement and right to life guaranteed by Article 19(1)(d) and Article 21 of the Constitution.
Reflecting on the ongoing proceedings, the court contrasted its outlook with the grim literary pessimism of Franz Kafka, noting that while the repeated cycles of civic distress resembled Shakespearean grief, the bench retained confident trust that the state government’s latest commitments would generate visible, lasting improvements on the ground.
History of Unmet Deadlines and Administrative Lapses
The court’s intervention forms part of a broader judicial scrutiny that began in 2020 over chronic civic mismanagement and water accumulation across Cuttack.
Court records show a continuous pattern of missed targets. An initial administrative commitment to finish road repairs before Durga Puja went unfulfilled, prompting the municipal commissioner to seek an extension through late November 2024. A subsequent compliance report submitted in December revealed that authorities had executed only 64 out of 105 sanctioned road and drainage projects.
Earlier, on September 12, 2024, the court had ordered immediate repairs across 15 wards, followed by an October 3 report from the advocates’ committee documenting severe waterlogging and damaged roads. In an order dated October 30, 2024, the bench rebuked the municipal corporation and the Roads and Buildings Department for an apparent lack of coordination over a road in Ward 2, observing that the agencies appeared to be shifting accountability to one another.
Scrutiny intensified in 2025 after an August 21 order pointed out that recently repaired road stretches had disintegrated rapidly, pointing to substandard workmanship and absent supervision. In September 2025, the bench censured the civic body for failing to submit a promised schedule of roads identified for repair, viewing the omission as an attempt to avoid judicial oversight. By October 9, 2025, the court mandated ward engineers to document all damaged stretches with clear deadlines, ordering that priority repairs be granted to hospitals, educational institutions, commercial areas, accident zones, and heavily populated neighbourhoods.
