Supreme Court And Air Pollution: An Overview Of The Vehicular Pollution case (1985-2019)

'Beating air pollution' is this year's environmental day theme. Pursuant to this, global community is taking concerted efforts to build consciousness about the environmental and health hazards posed by air pollution. The theme is central to India as a study by IQAir AirVisual and Greenpeace has identified 22 of 30 worst world's polluted cities in India. This highlights the pressing need to have an effective mechanism to check pollution. Legal efforts to curb pollution were taken as early as 1981, primarily by enacting the Air (Prevention and Control) Pollution Act, 1981. Despite having a specific law, pollution continued unabated. The issue is a multifaceted problem with various sources of emission of toxic air which did not get adequate attention from the government. This may have prompted many to approach an active judiciary for an effective solution. Over the three decades, Supreme Court of India has been hearing many issues relating to air pollution including pollution from vehicles, industries, burning of agricultural residues, burning of crackers, smoking in public spaces etc. Judiciary was instrumental in pushing the government to develop and adopt various policies and programmes for combating air pollution. Supreme Court was also severely criticised for overreaching its jurisdiction by adorning the role of a policy maker and a monitoring agency. This article discusses one of the important cases, M. C. Mehta v. Union of India, commonly known as the Vehicular Pollution case (W.P. 13029 of 1985). Vehicular pollution is recognised as one of the main causes of air pollution as exhausts released from vehicles contains nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter which adversely affect the environment, health and ecosystems. Call for Planning and Action - Judgment of 14th March 1991 The petition in Vehicular Pollution case was filed to control air pollution caused by vehicles plying in Delhi. After referring to various data on vehicular pollution, the Supreme Court observed the inadequacy of the normal steps taken to check and control pollution. These efforts included emission checking, prosecution and cancellation of registration. The Court opined that the challenging task of pollution control "requires a clear perception and imaginative planning. It also requires sustained effort and result oriented strategic action". The Ministry of Environment and Forest as a response suggested constitution of a committee to devise methods for controlling pollution in Delhi. This was one of the important outcomes of this case as it has led to creation of a statutory authority, namely the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority for the National Capital Region under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. Since 1991, the Supreme Court heard various suggestions and pleas for reducing pollution from various stakeholders including various Ministries and Department, amicus curie, associations of automobile industry. The suggestions included use of clean fuel such as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) instead of polluting fuel like diesel, requiring fitting of catalytic converter in exhaust system to reduce the release of air pollutants, supply of lead free petrol, phasing out of polluting old vehicles and so on. The next important judgment, perhaps the most important, is that of July 28th 1998. Delhi's CNG based Public Transport Programme, Phasing out of old vehicles- Judgment of 28th July 1998 This judgment was passed after directing Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) headed by Bhurelal to submit a report and action plan to tackle the problem of vehicular pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR). The Court approved the suggestions of the Bhurelal Committee and gave about 17 time-bound directions for arresting air pollution in the region. Important of these directions included restriction of plying of 15 year old commercial vehicles, complete conversion of city buses (both public and private) into CNG mode, replacement of all pre-1990s autos and taxis with new vehicles run on clean fuels, banning of 8 year old buses except on CNG or other clean fuels. These directions with the stipulated timeframe created much uproar and several petitions were filed by many over the course of two to three years. Many of the diesel automobile manufacturers and vehicle owners approached the Court for some relief. Certain modification with respect to extension of time was allowed. A few relaxations such as permission to ply vehicles to those who have placed orders for CNG or new vehicles were also given. The directions passed by the Supreme Court had far reaching consequences especially on public transportation. The government therefore, approached the Court to balance the interest of public transportation and air pollution which led to another important judgment passed on 5th April 2002. Judgment of 5th April 2002This judgment ...

Supreme Court And Air Pollution: An Overview Of The Vehicular Pollution case (1985-2019)

Alphonsa Jojan

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