Supreme Court To Close 40-Year-Old MC Mehta Cases To Avoid Impression Of Long Pendency

The Supreme Court on Monday proposed to close the MC Mehta cases, which have been pending since 1984-85. Although the grievances raised in these cases were addressed long back, the Court kept these matters pending to monitor issues related to air pollution and land ceiling in Delhi as well as the environment of the Taj Trapezium Zone.

The Court has been hearing various applications being filed in these matters from time to time, which deal with present day grievances different from the actual causes espoused in the original PILs filed by MC Mehta in forty years ago.

Today, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said that the pendency of the MC Mehta cases gave a misleading impression that cases filed in 1984 are still left undecided in the Supreme Court.

For context, there are three separate matters filed by MC Mehta which are pending before the top Court. These broadly pertain to environmental and ceiling issues in Delhi-NCR and environmental issues in the Taj Trapezium Zone. Filed in 1984-1985, these have continued to be heard from time to time as a result of fresh interim applications/miscellaneous applications filed in the original petitions.

Deprecating the situation, the CJI today remarked,

"How many matters - in MC Mehta, in MC Mehta? How many times MC Mehta will be [relieved] in a day? Why can't there be one matter of MC Mehta? When you ask in Parliament, we have to report that how many old matters are pending before us. Every time you put us in an embarrassing position that 1985 matter is pending. What is happening in this Court!? Why can't we treat as separate applications clubbing together and dealing with them separately? I am not going to have these 1985 matters pending here."

The CJI said that new grievances can be brought forth in separate petitions instead of being raised in the applications filed in the MC Mehta matter.

The order, passed by a bench comprising the CJI, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi, was dictated thus,

"It appears that there are multiple matters which are shown pending captioned as MC Mehta v. Union of India. There's one WP(C) No.13381/1984, which stood decided decades ago. Still miscellaneous applications/interim applications are filed and those are listed in such a manner as if the 1984 writ petition is still pending before the Court. There's another matter captioned as MC Mehta v. UoI, WP(C) No.4677/1985. In this matter too, several IAs have been filed from time to time and that decided matter is again shown alive and pending. There's a third matter WP(C) No.13029/1985. List these matters on 3 different dates. All IAs/MAs filed in each of these cases be listed separately on the date fixed."

The bench further called on all counsels appearing in these matters to apprise as to how these matters should be re-captioned "without reviving the old matters which have been decided way back". The exercise undertaken by the counsels shall also endeavor to identify matters which can be effectively and conveniently referred to jurisdictional High Courts, the order added.

The CJI indicated that the matters would be taken up in the first week of March. "We are fed up of these kind of documents and applications", he remarked.

Case Title: M.C. MEHTA Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS., W.P.(C) No. 13381/1984