New Delhi: Alarmed over a report about poor ambient air quality inside its premises, Delhi High Court on Thursday castigated its own concerned panel for not doing anything on the issue, saying it was "unacceptable" that everyone going there was at risk.
Taking note of an air quality monitoring report filed by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva pulled up the court's committee, asking "what are they doing till now".
Referring to the report which said that the main lobby of the High Court had more than 2.5 times the particulate matter than the safe standard, the bench said every day, thousands of people visited the court and "we all are at risk".
"What is the plan of the Delhi High Court Maintenance and Construction Committee and what are they going to do? Your (Maintenance and Construction Committee) report itself say that that air quality is below safety level," it said, adding that "no order or direction, no implementation, nothing has been done till date".
"We think they should have done it by now. We request the Maintenance and Construction Committee to carry out necessary work with regard to resolving of the poor air quality.
"The Committee may be directed to carry out immediate steps during the summer vacation," the bench said, adding that "we give this direction because the air level is beyond the safety level".
The direction came on a PIL which, apart from dealing with air pollution in Delhi, stated that the air inside the court premises was highly polluted, leading to health problems for lawyers, litigants, judges and court staff.
The CSE report had also said that courtroom two from where this bench functioned was one of the most highly polluted areas in the court premises.
Apart from the PIL, a petition was filed by advocate
Sudhir Mishra seeking directions to the Centre to take immediate steps to control rising air pollution in Delhi.
The court on April 15 had said the "magnitude" of trees cut by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for various projects has led air pollution to rise in Delhi and sought reports from them and the city government on where replantation has been undertaken and how much.
Observing that the notified green cover which was supposed to be 30 per cent which had fallen to 10.2 per cent in 2009 and could be much lower now, it had sought an action plan from Delhi government and the Centre to restore it.
The bench had also said that the DMRC has disclosed that approximately 46,529 trees have been cut for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd phases.
"Prior to cutting the trees DMRC had obtained permission from Forest Department under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act (DPTA), 1994.
"The permissions are subject to certain conditions of compensatory plantation security and according to DMRC they have deposited approximately a sum of Rs 68 crores. This is to cater to plantation of approximately 5,18,565 trees. The Forest Department needs to file an affidavit," the court had said.
In response, Depart of Forest and Wildlife through Delhi government's standing counsel Raman Duggal today said the city government being a nodal agency, coordinated with various land owing agencies to extend the green cover in Delhi.
Replying to a query on how much revenue had the Delhi government earned from sale of timber of the trees cut by DMRC, Duggal stated that as per the policy, they supply the timber free of cost to crematorium.
"The revenue received from sale of timber is nil," the Forest Department affidavit said.
The government further said that a total of about 5,56,865 seedlings have been planted by the forest department against a target of about five lakhs seedlings.
