‘Please show us a single step taken’: SC comes down heavily on air quality panel

The Supreme Court reprimanded the central air quality panel on Friday for not taking any action on local officers responsible to keep a check on crop burning in Punjab and Haryana. Every year the crop burning leads to disastrous consequences for the national capital that ends up witnessing a significant decline in air quality.

The apex court bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih pulled up the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and pointed out that not a single committee was formed to tackle the stubble burning issue. 

"Every year we see stubble burning. There has been total non-compliance of the CAQM Act. Have committees been constituted? Please show us a single step taken. Which directions have you used under the Act? You are silent spectators. You are doing nothing," the court said.

However the panel chairperson said that three sub-committees were holding a meeting every three months. 

The two-judge bench said efforts were needed to make sure that the use of stubble burning alternative equipment was used at grassroots level. The court also noted that there were hardly any directions issued under the Act and no action was being taken for violations.

The bench recorded that even as the panel has been in existence for three years, it has issued only about 82 directions. The court asked the commission to be “more active”, adding that it has not functioned in the manner it was supposed to. 

The court said that certain equipment have been provided to the farmers from the money supplied by the central government, which can be used as a substitute for stubble burning. The court also sought details of the meetings of the sub-committees of the CAQM.