Supreme Court Registers Suo Motu Case On NCR Air Pollution; Bids Adieu To MC Mehta Case

The Supreme Court today formally closed the 40-year-old MC Mehta case pertaining to air quality issues in the Delhi National Capital Region.

A CJI Surya Kant led bench has alternatively ordered registration of a suo motu case titled "In Re: issues of Air Pollution in National Capital Region".

The bench also comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi passed the order, after hearing Senior Advocate Aparajita Singh (Amicus Curiea) and Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati 

"On the previous date, parties were ad idem that this is high time when the proceedings, purportedly of 1985, ought to be formally disposed of. It was suggested so in light of the fact that none of the issue that still survives originated in 1985 or soon thereafter. The challenges which this Court is now tasked to resolve are of recent times and hence require that the writ petition should be appropriately recaptioned. Keeping the suggestion given by learned Amicus, which is fully supported by learned ASG and other stakeholders, we formally dispose of WP(C) No.13029/1985. No IA or miscellaneous application shall hitherto be entertained by the Registry in that matter. Instead, the Registry is directed to register suo motu proceedings Re: Issues of air pollution in NCR," court noted in its order today.

It has further been directed that all Interlocutory Applications pending as of now shall be registered as writ petitions and each IA will be assigned a separate writ petition number.

For case management and consequential disposal of the pending IAs, recommendations given by the Amicus were accepted and the few directions have been issued.

Notably, Advocates on Record in the pending IAs have been asked to inform as to whether the respective applications have become infructuous. "If such applications have not become infructuous, they are directed to assign a specific reason failing which it will be deemed that the IA has become infructuous. The AoR shall inform the Registry within 2 weeks. Learned Amicus is also requested to independently identify the IAs which have become infructuous", the court has added.

Also, all applications which require consideration on merits shall be assigned separate writ numbers and they shall be further sub-categorized. The Court has directed the concerned AoRs to identify in 2 weeks under what sub-category their pending IA falls and help with the sub-categorization of the same. The Registry on its part is to ensure that all IAs falling under one sub-head are given continuous writ numbers.

Further, the AoRs have been asked to serve advance copies of their IAs to the Commission on Air Quality Management which shall also circulate the reports in advance, as far as possible, to all stakeholders for an effective hearing.

The States/UTs of National Capital Territory including Delhi, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan are to file their compliance reports/affidavits in advance, as far as possible. The Court has further restrained the Registry from entertaining any new IA or miscellaneous application under the above-mentioned sub-categories without its prior permission.

The issue in the instant scenario was recently highlighted by CJI Kant who deprecated the constant filing of Interlocutory Applications  and Miscellaneous Applications under the original 1984 writ petition.

While the primary legal issues in these cases were settled long ago, the continuous stream of monitoring applications has kept the original cases technically "alive." CJI had pointed out that M.C. Mehta case alone has 85 such pending applications, leading to a situation where the court’s backlog appears artificially inflated. To rectify this, the Bench has now ordered that the M.C. Mehta matters be listed separately.

Bench: CJI Kant, Justice Bagchi and Justice Pancholi

Hearing Date: March 12, 2026