In the environmental issue of Delhi, the deteriorating air quality, nothing has been done by the Centre to date to ameliorate the pain of citizens. This was informed to the Supreme Court bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta on Wednesday (July 25) by Amicus U U Lalit.
Lalit said today that till date tenders have not been floated and nothing has been done which clearly indicates that the intention of the Centre is not to complete the target till 2022. It was also stated that the Centre is relying only on FGD technology which requires thousand of crores and will take approximately three years for proper functioning, which is not justified as there are other alternatives available like NOCS.
It was also said that no proper report has been submitted from the Centre to show the reason for their delay and lethargy. It was said that the Centre was filing numerous affidavits just to delay the case.
It was said that this was the best time for doing the upgradation which the Centre was ignoring. Earlier, the court granted time for filing a better affidavit, but till date not a single step had been taken. She also referred to the EPCA and CAC report where possible solutions and methods to deal with the issue are mentioned.
The bench blasted the counsel appearing for the Centre, saying: “You should now file one affidavit written in a single line that ‘we are not going to do it.’ Earlier you said you need four years. Now you are just extending and delaying the date. This is seriously not the way. Tenders should have been out till now but nothing has been done. You cry for technology issues that we don’t have proper mechanism and even after getting it you are not willing to do it because it is clear that your intention is not to do anything.”
The counsel for the Centre made excuses. This time he said due to personal issues of the concerned authority he is not able to submit the report today but he will definitely submit the report on the next date.
Justice Lokur mockingly to this said that hope personal problem is not because of the air pollution.
The bench has kept the matter for August 6 and has asked the counsel for the Centre to submit a proper report stating why tenders have not been floated yet. What are the plants around 500 megawatts that need to be considered first. Areas which are densely populated should be considered first, therefore report should be made considering all these factors.
—India Legal Bureau