NEW DELHI: Delhi might have been at the heart of campaigns against pollution, but not a single case was registered here for violation of the Air Act in 2015. Of the 50 cases filed across the country, 42 were in Maharashtra alone.
While this data was released earlier this year as a part of a National Crime Records Bureau report, lawyers on Thursday highlighted how despite being armed with a criminal law, pollution control boards had failed abysmally to act. The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, provides for a punishment of not less than 1.5 years for norm violations, said Ritwick Dutta, advocate and founder of Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE).
Addressing a workshop, Dutta said: "The minimum punishment under the Air Act is not less than 1.5 years, but we don't see any enforcement. There is an inherent problem because of which the provisions of the Act have failed." Elaborating on the point, he said that any industryorganisation had to apply with the pollution control boards for consent to "operate" and "consent to establish" and, for that, they paid them a fee. "The pollution control boards sustain themselves by issuing these permits," he said.
Unlike forest officers, pollution control board staff and scientists were not trained to file criminal complaints and drag violators to court. As a result, they just issued notices, requesting violators to follow rules, Dutta said.
"In Maharashtra, too, 42 cases were filed under Air Act because courts had asked pollution control boards to bring violators to task," he claimed.
US EPA and environmental regulators in many other countries have a civil law where they take the violator to court and can seek monetary compensation. In India, governments can, however, register a civil case under National Green Tribunal Act. "Governments can invoke Schedule-II of NGT Act. If others can use this Act, why can't they?" Lawyers also gave a break-up of various cases heard in the five NGT courts -about 250 cases are heard every day by each of them. About 25% of the cases heard by NGT are on various aspects of air pollution, 20% each on water pollution, environment impact assessment and waste, 10% on forests and 5% others.
Under the head of air pollution, the issues range from vehicular pollution, brick kilns and stone crushers, thermal power plants, waste-to-energy plants, construction projects and agricultural and forest fires. "A majority of the cases from Kolkata and Bihar are against brick kilns," said Dutta.
