The counsel for the Ghaziabad civic body submitted that it has recently conducted a drive to remove encroachments and all these were demolished and garbage was removed.

To this, the counsel for the Kaushambi residents said the municipal authority has utterly failed in its duty and the encroachers have returned in the area.

The bench said, "They (applicant) are not saying something strange. They are saying what you (authority) should do in the normal course. Why are you not doing anything?"

The green panel had earlier imposed a penalty of Rs five lakh on the public authorities of Ghaziabad for "failing to discharge their statutory duties".

It had passed the order after going through an inspection report submitted by a committee constituted earlier, which had said that there was high air pollution in the area besides reckless dumping of waste, burning of garbage, traffic congestion and unregulated parking on the road.

It had also issued notice to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for flouting environment norms in carrying out construction work near Anand Vihar ISBT and Kaushambi area.

The tribunal had earlier constituted a panel comprising officials from the Central Pollution Control Board, DPCC and UPPCB and asked them to submit an inspection report.