NEW DELHI: The problem of men urinating in public has left even the Delhi high court exasperated.

A division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Deepa Sharma said, on a lighter note, that short of ordering that every man's zipper be locked and the keys left at home, there is little it can do to check the menace.

Refusing to intervene on a petition seeking direction to authorities to ensure walls are not defaced by people urinating in public, HC pointed out that it can't issue such directions. "The problem of urinating in public has to be solved elsewhere. Surely, this court cannot make a man, who walks out of his house, keep his zip locked," the court said, hoping that "man, the greatest creation of the infinite artist, would not bare his privies in front of his lord and urinate on the road".

HC lamented that even pasting portraits of deities on walls does not stop men from relieving themselves in public. "In spite there of, the photographs evidence that the pressure on the bladder is blatantly relieved by virtually peeing on the photographs of one's God."

The bench made the remarks while disposing of a plea seeking removal of pictures of deities from the walls of a housing complex which . The pictures were put up to discourage people from urinating on them of the housing complex' compound, the court noted but added that despite this those engaged in such activities have not been dissuaded. "Nobody can prevent a person from affixing photographs of deities on the walls of his house or the walls of a group housing complex. The direction sought to be issued against the residents that photographs of Gods be directed to be removed cannot be issued by us," it said.

HC noted that the complex owners wrote in graffiti, "Look here, a dog and a donkey is peeing", but this did not deter a man from doing just that.

The court in its order said petitioner Manoj Sharma had filed pictures showing that residents of buildings were "fed up with the Indian habit of relieving the pressure on the bladder by unzipping and peeing on the first wall they see" and had affixed photographs of deities on the walls to curtail or prohibit such conduct.

