Supreme Court Closes 40-Yr Old MC Mehta Case; Registers Suo Motu Case On NCR Air Quality Issue

The Supreme Court today formally closed the 40-year old MC Mehta v. Union of India case pertaining to air quality in Delhi-National Capital Region. In its place, it ordered registration of a suo motu case as well as separate writ petitions to deal with the remaining issues/applications.

The suo motu case shall be titled "Re: Issues of air pollution in NCR".

A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi passed the order, after hearing Senior Advocate Aparajita Singh (Amicus), Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, and others.

In 1985, PIL was filed by MC Mehta to address the pollution issue in Delhi. Although the immediate grievance raised in the petition was addressed, the matter was kept pending, and its scope was expanded to address the recurring issues. Fresh issues were brought to the Court through Interlocutory Applications filed in the MC Mehta matter, instead of fresh writ petitions.

Recently, CJI Surya Kant commented that the pendency of the MC Mehta case gave the wrong impression that a 1985 case was still pending. He therefore proposed that the matter be re-captioned as a fresh matter. All agreed to this proposal.

The order was dictated thus today:

"On the previous date, parties were ad idem that this is high time when the proceedings, purportedly of 1985, ought to be formally disposed of. It was suggested so in light of the fact that none of the issue that still survives originated in 1985 or soon thereafter. The challenges which this Court is now tasked to resolve are of recent times and hence require that the writ petition should be appropriately recaptioned. Keeping the suggestion given by learned Amicus, which is fully supported by learned ASG and other stakeholders, we formally dispose of WP(C) No.13029/1985. No IA or miscellaneous application shall hitherto be entertained by the Registry in that matter. Instead, the Registry is directed to register suo motu proceedings Re: Issues of air pollution in NCR."

The Court directed that all Interlocutory Applications pending as of now be registered as writ petitions and each IA assigned a separate writ petition number. For case management and consequential disposal of the pending IAs, recommendations given by the Amicus were accepted. Consequently, the following directions were issued:

"(i) AoRs in pending IAs shall inform as to whether the respective applns. have become infructuous. If such applications have not become infructuous, they are directed to assign a specific reason failing which it will be deemed that the IA has become infructuous. The AoR shall inform the Registry within 2 weeks. Learned Amicus is also requested to independently identify the IAs which have become infructuous.

(ii) All such applications which require consideration on merits shall be assigned separate writ numbers and they shall be further sub-categorized - (a) vehicular pollution including payment of ECC (b) air quality governance including [...] (c) power plants including [...] (d) industrial pollution including [...] (e) waste management including [...] ...other policy issues that may require consideration"

The Court said that the concerned AoRs shall identify in 2 weeks under what sub-category their pending IA falls and help with the sub-categorization of the same. The Registry on its part shall ensure that all IAs falling under one sub-head are given continuous writ numbers. Further, the AoRs must give advance service of their IAs (recaptioned as writ petitions) to the CAQM. CAQM, on its part, shall circulate the reports in advance, as far as possible, to all stakeholders for an effective hearing.

Besides the above, it was also directed that the States/UTs of NCT of Delhi, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan shall file their compliance reports/affidavits in advance, as far as possible. The Court further restrained the Registry from entertaining any new IA or miscellaneous application under the above-mentioned sub-categories without its prior permission.

Case Title: MC Mehta v. Union of India, WP(C) No.13029/1985