The Supreme Court has called for “urgent and immediate intervention” to check vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR, directing Delhi and three neighbouring states to explain how they regulate vehicle entry and movement, enforce emission standards and keep polluting vehicles off the roads, as vehicular emissions emerge as a growing contributor to the region’s deteriorating air quality.
The court specifically ordered the authorities to disclose the mechanisms in place to identify and regulate vehicles that do not conform to prescribed emission standards, including enforcement of Pollution Under Control (PUC) certification requirements, and steps taken to prevent the entry and operation of overage, end-of-life and otherwise non-compliant vehicles. The order also signals a more focussed judicial scrutiny of the different sources of pollution, with the Supreme Court scheduling separate hearings in four companion suo motu proceedings dealing with vehicular emissions, green cover, pollution from construction activities and industries, and solid waste management, including crop-residue burning and firecrackers. The court also gave the states two weeks to place on record their submissions on the steps already taken, their response to suggestions made by the CAQM and the amici curiae, and any independent measures they propose to undertake. It had also identified vehicular pollution and congestion as major concerns, pointing to bumper-to-bumper traffic in Delhi as well as neighbouring cities such as Noida and Gurugram.
To be sure, in a report submitted to the court earlier this year, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) had identified vehicular emissions as the single-largest source of air pollution in Delhi-NCR, accounting for 23% of the pollution in winter and 19% in summer. The court’s latest intervention follows an assessment of the compliance of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) placed before it by the amicus curiae and senior advocate Aparajita Singh along with additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati, which showed a substantial decline in incidents of stubble burning across Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan between October 21 and November 3. The amici had pointed out that compliance with the court’s earlier orders of January 21 and February 23 had yet to be properly reported. The order follows its November 6 hearing, when it questioned whether the conventional measures adopted by authorities, including traffic restrictions and water sprinklers, had yielded adequate results and called for more effective interventions.
But the same data brought out a “sharp increase in issues attributable to vehicular emissions”, shifting attention to what the bench considered an equally pressing source of pollution. In an order released on Sunday, a bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the Delhi government, Delhi Police’s traffic department and the governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to file detailed responses on the regulatory framework governing commercial and non-commercial vehicles operating within the national capital and the wider National Capital Region (NCR).
