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Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati informed Supreme Court on Tuesday that Delhi was one of the most habitual offenders so far as Yamuna Pollutants were concerned. She added that a status report to this effect will be filed before the next date of hearing.
A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices LN Rao & Vineet Saran was hearing its suo motu case titled "IN RE: Remediation of River Pollutants".
Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora who had been appointed as the amicus curiae in the case informed Court today that to effectuate furtherance of the issues in the present case, it would be highly beneficial if a detailed report from the Committee named "River Yamuna Monitoring Committee" appointed by National Green Tribunal may be called upon and looked at by Court.
She added that Recommendations made by Committee and Status as on date may be called upon.
"A number of aspects are underway by this committee. If we have them tell us the status of developments, would help our case to move forward," Arora told top court.
Further, she added that Delhi Jal Board had in fact brought down water level pollutants. Let them maintain that as it is a matter of portability. The level as of today is 0.33 ppm (particles per million). "Acceptable level is 0.9 and it is much lower than that," she said.
Senior Advocate Shyam Divan for Delhi Jal Board, at this juncture, submitted,
"But we don't intend to breach this. This whole notion that is being projected over here is not part of delivery system."
In this context, the top court directed the Committee as aforementioned to submit a report to this court regarding recommendations made for improvement of water in the River Yamuna and the extent to which this recommendation has been implemented.
Last week, while hearing the petition related to increased ammonia levels in Yamuna [Delhi Jal Board v. State of Haryana] due to discharge of pollutants, Top Court issued direction to register a suo motu petition viz. contamination of river water, due to improper waste disposal.
Court said, “Open surface water resources including rivers are lifeline of human civilization. In olden days, almost all the human settlements were at the bank of some river as it provided for an array of utilities such as portable water, irrigation, food, livelihood, transportation, etc. Every civilization including ours, has shown great amount of gratitude to these life creating resources.”
Acknowledging the duty of State to ensure healthy and safe environment, Court placed reliance on Article 47, Article 48, Article 243W of the Constitution, along with the observation made by the Supreme Court in Narmada Bachao Andolan v. Union of India, (2000) 10 SCC 664, in the words, “Water is the basic need for the survival of human beings and is part of the right to Life and human rights as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India and can be served only by providing source of water where there is none. The resolution of UNO in 1977 to which India is a signatory, during the United Nations Water Conference resolved unanimously inter alia as: All the people, whatever their stage of development and their social and economic conditions, have the right to have access to drinking water in quantum and of a quality equal to their basic needs”
Taking into consideration the points raised by the present petition, Court said that although the mandate of law is quite clear; of setting up sewage treatment plants and stoppage of sewage effluents in surface water but on inspection it is often discovered that either the sewage is not treated through a plant before being discharged or the treatment plants are wholly incapacitated.
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Case Title: Delhi Jal Board v. State of Haryana | WP (Civil) No. 8/2021
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