Apex Court slams babus' inertia for worsening air quality in Capital
The Supreme Court on Wednesday flagged bureaucratic inertia and TV channels debate as contributory factors for worsening air pollution in Delhi.
On Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s submission that TV debates accused him of misleading the court by giving a low percentage of stubble burning in air pollution, Chief Justice NV Ramana observed that debates on TV news channels are causing more pollution than anybody with statements made in the court being taken out of context.
At the same time, the bureaucracy faced the wrath of the apex court for delaying the implementation of measures to tackle air pollution and not leaving the courts to do the job.
The bench headed by the Chief Justice said every TV channel has its own agenda and statements are taken out of context in their debates. “You want to use some issue, make us observe and then make it controversial, and then only blame games will remain..,” observed the bench also comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant.
“Debates on TV are creating more pollution than anybody. They don’t understand what is happening and what the issue is. Statements are taken out of context. Everyone has their own agenda. We can’t help and we can’t control. We are focusing on working out the solution,” said the apex court when Mehta pointed out
that many debates in TV gave a picture that he tried to mislead the court on the role of stubble burning in the air pollution.
“I watched some irresponsible and nasty utterances on TV media against me that I misled the court on the question of stubble burning by showing that its contribution is only 4 to 7 per cent. Let me clarify,” SG said.
The top court, however, said, “We were not misled at all. You said 10 per cent but it was pointed out in the affidavit that it was 30 to 40 per cent. This type of criticism is bound to happen when we are holding public offices. We are clear, our conscience is clear, forget about all this. These kinds of
criticism keep happening. Our conscience is clear and we work for the betterment of society,” the bench said.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Delhi Government said that stubble burning was one of the contributors of the air pollution which needs to be addressed and referred to the Centre’s figures on the issue. The plea has been filed by environmental activist Aditya Dubey and law student Aman Banka, who sought directions to provide stubble-removing machines to small and marginal farmers for free.
After its displeasure on TV debates, the apex court blamed bureaucracy for not taking decisions and trying to put all job on courts.
“The bureaucracy has developed “inertia” and does not want to take any decision, leaving it to the court to do everything. It is apathy and just apathy,” said the CJI Ramana.
“Over a period of time what I am observing, as a judge and an Advocate General also that the bureaucracy, completely, I think has developed some sort of inertia. They don’t want to take a decision. How to stop a car, seize a vehicle, how to stop a fire has to be done by this court. Everything we have to do. This is an attitude developed by the Executive,” the CJI added.
The Centre presented a slew of measures in the Supreme Court, including a ban on entry of all trucks in the national Capital except vehicles carrying essential goods, shutting of schools and 50 per cent attendance in offices of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) to reduce air pollution in Delhi-NCR. Mehta told the bench that a meeting of chief secretaries of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi along with others was held on Tuesday.
The issue regarding work from home for Central Government officers was considered but the total vehicles used for Central Government officers are not huge. So rather than implementing work from home we have issued an advisory for pooling and sharing of vehicles, said Mehta. The Centre suggested 50 per cent attendance in offices of GNCTD.
Meanwhile, construction workers’ associations also moved the apex court seeking ex-gratia relief schemes for daily workers who will suffer the loss of income due to sudden complete ban on the sector’s activities imposed by NCR States to curb pollution caused by dust. A blanket ban on construction activities, without identifying and excluding the ones which do not contribute towards air pollution is “irrational, arbitrary and whimsical”, said the petition filed by National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour.
It alleged that despite having a dedicated corpus of Rs 2,700 crore, the GNCTD has failed to frame any ex-gratia relief scheme for the building workers for the periods when they have to give up their work due to “sudden absolute blanket bans”. “The GNCTD and Government of Haryana have failed to assess and identify the pollution-causing activities. It is submitted that ideally, the ban ought to be limited to activities such as demolition and excavation only.
“Such absolute blanket bans unnecessarily trample upon rights and livelihoods of lakhs of building workers, without contributing even an iota towards reducing air pollution,” said the plea.