Above: A smoke emanating from a factory. Photo: Anil Shakya

The Supreme Court bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta on Tuesday (October 24) inposed a cost of Rs 2 lakh on the environment ministry for sitting on a draft note from industry stakeholders on setting pollution level standards.

The bench is hearing a PIL filed by activist and senior advocate M C Mehta on air pollution related to industry, vehicles, power stations etc.

On Tuesday the counsel for the applicant argued that the court on May 2 had passed an order, directing the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to fix pollution standards for 34 polluting industries in Haryana, Rajasthan and UP. CPCB was given till June 30. The CPCB had requested that they be given time.

The plea was that CPCB was not fixing national standards for polluting industries till date, creating confusion within the industry. The industry had provided the draft note as required, but even the ministry was sitting on it, it was argued.

The ASG submitted that out of 34 industry 9 are working under the standard limit of pollution and 2 are not required any direction as they are none polluting industry.

—India Legal Bureau