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Synopsis

The Supreme Court of India has today stayed the decision to the National Green Tribunal's Western Zone Bench decision to limit the number of members of Dhol-Tasha troupes during Ganpati Visarjan in Pune to 30 members.

A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took up the matter after an urgent mentioning was made today morning.

"How can they restrict the number of people being a part of Visarjan? Visarjan is on 17th..please hear tomorrow", the court was told in the morning.

CJI directed the counsel before him to send and email and assured to hear the same at 2PM.

When the matter was taken up, the NGT's order was placed before the court for perusal.

"Pune has a deep cultural significance when it comes to Ganpati festival...it was started some 100 years back by Lokmanya Tilak..", the bench was told.

While issuing notice on the plea, court stayed the impugned directions from the NGT's order.

In the impugned order NGT had directed the Police department to ensure that the total number of Dhol+Tasha+Zanj members in each troupe during Visarjan Procession shall not exceed 30 in number.

"In the case of violation of above directions, Police shall seize loudspeakers/sound system/ Dhol/Tasha/Zanj units.", a bench of Judicial Member Dinesh Kumar Singh and Expert Member Vijay Kulkarni had further ordered.

These directions were passed by the NGT in an original application filed to implement adequate noise control and monitoring measures during Ganesh festival to mitigate noise pollution in Pune city.