The Kerala High Court on Tuesday took suo motu cognizance of toxic haze and smog that has engulfed Kochi, the Queen of Arabian Sea, that boasts of a clean and placid environment. A Division Bench of justices K Vinod Chandran and C Jayachandran would hear a suo motu writ petition listed by the court as a follow up to the letter sent by Justice Devan Ramachandran to Chief Justice Manikumar on Monday drawing the attention of the court to the alarming situation in Kochi as a result of the unabated smog and poisonous gas that has engulfed the metro because of the fire mishap in a plastic solid wate dumping ground measuring 70 acres in the city suburbs.
Both the Government of Kerala and the Local Body (the Corporation of Kochi) came under severe criticism of the Court for the callous attitude of the officials towards the incident. Meanwhile the Opposition Congress have come out with an allegation that the fire and smog were the fall outs of massive corruption involving the daughter and son-in-law of a top CPI-M leader. This was announced by V D Satheeshan, leader of the Opposition. The allegation was in the air for quite some time now and the recent fire at the Brahmapuram Solid Waste Treatment Plant has brought it back to the public domain.
"The repeated incidents of fire at the yard remains a cause of concern for local residents, and as per reports, plastic waste piled up at Kochi Corporation's swtp has gone up in smoke without fail every year since 2019. Despite repeated episodes the authorities have not been able to take concrete action to check such mishaps," said the petition.