Stubble burning not sole reason for Delhi's pollution: Supreme Court calls for long term and short term solutions

Supreme Court has questioned whether stubble burning is the sole reason for the Delhi air pollution crisis. CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi's bench noted that it is easy to blame farmers who engage in stubble burning when they are not represented before the Court.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told the Court that Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in Delhi and adjoining areas has prepared action plans to tackle pollution in these places. She added that stubble burning, vehicular pollution, construction dust, road dust, and biomass burning have been named as contributors to pollution.

"We don't want to comment on stubble burning as it's easy to pass off burden on those who are hardly represented before us," the bench said in response.

"We want to see the long term and short term plan and we will keep taking the case up. None of the cities of the country were developed to accommodate this scale of population or with the thought that each home will have multiple cars," CJI Kant has ordered.

As the Delhi pollution case was mentioned last week before Chief Justice of India's bench, the CJI said that court “does not have a magic wand” to instantly find solutions for the Delhi-NCR’s air pollution.

Agreeing to review the condition on a regular basis a CJI Surya Kant led bench listed the matter for December 1 and said, "We will take up the matter. We don't have a magic wand which courts can use to find quick solutions on this. The problems we have identified, their solutions are what we need. We will have to identify all the reasons,".

Former CJI BR Gavai had recently directed that the pollution case shall be taken up on a monthly basis by the Supreme Court where action taken reports shall be submitted before it by the government authorities. Recently, the Supreme Court had also called for a report from Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the Central Pollution Control Board on the steps taken to prevent the pollution from worsening further. Senior Advocate Aparajita Singh had informed the bench that newspapers had reported that many monitoring stations are non-functional. "If the monitoring stations are not even functioning, we don't even know when to implement GRAP, that is the severe situation milords", Singh added. ASG Aishwarya Bhatti told the bench that the requisite reports would be filed.

Supreme Court was recently told that construction activity in the Delhi NCR region should have stopped six months ago. Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan had told a CJI Gavai led bench that, "When we react to 7 people losing lives in terrorist attack, lung cancer millions are losing their lives..it has become an emergent issue now..construction should have stopped six months ago..GRAP should be triggered the minute AQI crosses 100..".

Senior Advocate and Amicus Curiae Aparajita Singh had told the bench that farmers were told to burn their crops after a particular time so that the satellites don't catch images. To this the CJI asked, "Are all farmers deciding a particular time to burn their crops?". The bench went on to question as to who was directing the farmers to burn the crops after a particular time.

Case Title: MC Mehta vs. Union of India

Bench: CJI Kant, Justice Bagchi

Hearing Date: December 1, 2025