Supreme Court Raps Centre, Punjab And Haryana Over Stubble Burning—All About It

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (23 October) grilled the Punjab and Haryana governments for their inadequate efforts to curb stubble burning, which has contributed to severe air pollution in Delhi.

The apex Court also slammed the Centre for making the environment protection law “toothless”, and said the provision under the CAQM Act which deals with penalty for stubble burning was not being implemented.

The court, on 16 October, had summoned the Chief Secretaries of both states, after expressing severe disapproval over the lack of proper legal action against stubble burning in the state.

During the previous hearing, the Court observed that not a single prosecution had taken place against stubble-burning incidents. It had asked the Commission for Air Quality (CAQM) to take penal action against state officers for failing to discharge their functions.

The bench of Justices Abhay S Oka, Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Augustine George Masih, said, "It is submitted from your side that around 1080 violators FIRs were registered, but you have collected this nominal fine from only 473 people. You are sparing 600 or more people. We will tell you very frankly that you are giving signal to violators that nothing will be done against them. This has been for the past three years," India TV reported.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati pointed out that over 1,000 cases of stubble burning have taken place in several districts of Punjab like Amritsar, Ferozepur, Patiala, Sangrur, Taran Taran.

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