The state government informed the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that the Mumbai and Thane police were treating tweets received on their official Twitter handle regarding noise pollution violations as complaints and acting on them. “Once the police receive such a tweet, they treat the comment as a complaint. The complainant is asked for his or her contact details and informed about when beat marshals will be sent across,” said senior counsel A AKhumbakoni, who appeared for the government.
The High Court was hearing a bunch of petitions relating to compliance of noise pollution rules. Meanwhile, in terms of the figures submitted by the government which showed that very few cases were registered based on noise pollution violations in March, Justice A S Oka pointed out, “it is very difficult to accept that 90 per cent of the persons are filing false complaints.”
Kumbhakoni said the complaints were not wrong but in majority of the cases, the persons used loudspeakers and other sound equipment without obtaining licenses and stopped immediately after the police van arrived on the spot which is why there were not too many cases which were registered for noise pollution violations.
According to the figures for the month of March, there were 2,433 complaints received all across the state, the police reached the spot in 2,388 cases and recorded noise levels in 683 cases. In 350 cases the noise system was stopped, but no substance was found in 2,006 cases. 185 cases were registered only under noise pollution rules.
Meanwhile, in Mumbai, while a total of 1,136 cases were received, only 27 cases were registered eventually. Kumbhakoni also said that Maharashtra Motor Vehicles Rules had been amended restricting honking in silence zones excepting in situations where a person needs to honk for safety purposes. A penalty will also be imposed in such cases.
