New Delhi: Severely indicting the Delhi Government for its failure to relocate industries operating in residential areas, the Supreme Court has said that the trust it had reposed in the State Government has been belied.

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While ordering closure of all industries, except the permissible household units, from the residential areas within five months, a Bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice B N Agrawal expressed serious reservations in the manner in which the State Government carried out the eight year-old directions of the apex Court.

Referring to its December 18, 1996 judgement, the Bench said orders were passed directing the Delhi Government to issue public notices in newspapers requiring industries in residential and non-conforming areas to apply for allotment of plots in Industrial Estates and also an undertaking that on such allotment they would shift from the existing place.

The Court thinking that the Delhi Government was now seriously processing the project of relocating the industries operating in the residential and non-conforming areas of Delhi, left the field for the Government to act on its own and relocate the industry in terms of the orders dated December 18, 1996, the Bench said.

Justice Sabharwal, writing for the Bench, said, "It is a matter of anguish that subsequent events show that the trust that was reposed by the apex Court on the Government was belied in terms of the action to be taken for implementation of the law, namely the continuance of industrial activity in areas in question in conformity with the user prescribed by the master plan of Delhi."