Only nine of 37 monitoring stations were functioning on Diwali in Delhi, the Supreme Court was told on Monday as concerns were raised over the reliability of data and deteriorating air quality in the Capital. The top court has asked the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to submit an affidavit within a week with details of the steps taken to prevent the air quality from slipping further.
During the hearing, senior advocate Aparajitha Singh, who is the amicus curiae in the matter, referred to the news reports that a majority of the air quality monitoring stations in the Capital were not functioning on Diwali as she said that instances like these could jeopardise the implementation of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
“There are newspapers after newspapers saying monitoring stations are non-functional. If the monitoring stations are not even functioning, we don’t even know when to implement GRAP. That is the severe situation. Let them also answer what the situation of the monitoring station is, because out of 37 (stations) on the day of Deepavali, only 9 were functioning continuously,” she told the court. “Why is the CAQM shirking from filing a report?” wondered Singh during the hearing.
In response, a bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and K Vinod Chandran said, “We direct the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to place on record an affidavit indicating the steps proposed to be taken to prevent the air pollution levels from deteriorating further…”
The Counsel for CAQM submitted that it had already filed a report on the peremptory steps and added that it is the CPCB which has the pollution-related data.
Meanwhile, to review the pollution situation in the Capital, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Monday convened a high-level meeting at the Delhi Secretariat. She said that multiple teams have been constituted to act against industrial units and seize polluting vehicles. As per an official statement, she also said that consistent efforts are underway “to normalise conditions in identified pollution hotspots”. She directed the enforcement teams to submit daily reports. Additional teams are being constituted to eliminate incidents of garbage burning, officials said. Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said that all agencies have been instructed to double the deployment of water sprinklers, and that dust control remains a “top priority”.
At 309, the average AQI of Delhi on Monday was in the “very poor” category.
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The SC has been monitoring the air pollution related matters in Delhi-NCR and issuing orders from time to time. These include the orders related to the ban on polluting firecrackers and measures to stop the farm fires in states like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
On September 27, 2024, the court had pulled up the statutory body that tackles air pollution as it said that the CAQM “needs to be more active” to check pollution due to stubble burning in areas under its jurisdiction.
At the time, the court had also agreed with the amicus curiae “that the commission has not performed the way it was expected to perform considering the object for which the commission was set up.”.
Hearing the matter on September 17, the SC also mooted reintroducing the penal provision in the The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, so that those who continue to indulge in stubble burning, which contributes to air pollution in the winters, can be prosecuted to “act as a deterrent.”
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The Centre had amended Section 15 of the Act, which provided for criminal prosecution, by way of an amendment in 2023. The Union government, however, informed the court that it was a national policy not to prosecute farmers.
Ahead of Diwali this year, the court also relaxed the blanket ban on firecrackers in Delhi-NCR and allowed the sale of green crackers approved by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) from October 18 to October 20. It limited the usage to two days – October 19 and 20, between 6 am to 7 am and 8 pm to 10 pm.
