PTI, NEW DELHI: Talking tough on pollution in Delhi, the Supreme Court Monday asked the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to prosecute government officials for not acting on around 250 complaints received by it from citizens.
The court said this on a day when monitoring stations in the national capital recorded air quality in the “very poor” category.
A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said officials who have failed to act on the complaints were required to be prosecuted.
“Why don’t you prosecute these officials? You should prosecute them. Let these people realise what they have done,” the bench told Additional Solicitor General A N S Nadkarni, who was appearing for the CPCB.
Nadkarni said from November 1-22 this year, the CPCB received 749 air pollution complaints on their social media accounts and action was taken on around 500 such complaints.
Regarding the court’s suggestion to prosecute the officials responsible for not acting on the complaints, he said the CPCB would look into it.
The CPCB on November 1 told the apex court it has created social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook where citizens could lodge their complaints about pollution in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR).
In an affidavit filed in the court, which is seized of matters related to pollution in Delhi-NCR, the CPCB said that “of 749 complaints received on social media and e-mails till November 22, 2018, about 500 complaints (67 per cent of the total) were attended by 52 teams of CPCB while associating with clean air campaign during November 1-10, 2018”.
It further said that the teams continued “similar campaign on its own on November 13 and November 20 exclusively to attend the air pollution complaints received on social media and e-mails. Remaining 249 complaints have been assigned to respective nodal agencies and are in the process of getting resolved”.
The affidavit said as per analysis of complaints during the clean air campaign, the highest number of air pollution incidents related to construction and demolition activities, followed by burning of waste, road dust, unpaved areas/roads, traffic congestion and industrial emissions.
In continuation of the opening of social media accounts on October 29, the affidavit said the CPCB has set up a separate cell for management of citizen’s complaints on social media being received through Facebook, Twitter, e-mails and CPCB’s website since November 5.
“Complaints received at social media accounts namely Twitter and Facebook have to be resolved by respective nodal agencies who are responsible for taking appropriate action,” it said.
