In February 2014, a man from a smog-ridden city of China made headlines for suing the government for failing to curb air pollution.
He had sought compensation from the government for having to spend on indoor gyms, face masks and air purifiers in December 2013 when the pollution was severe.
In November 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled that the UK government must act on cleaning up the dangerous level of air pollution after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the government was failing in its legal duty to protect people from the harmful effects of air pollution. The ruling allowed people to sue the government for breaching pollution laws.
Back home, while winters spread around a festive cheer in Northern India, alongside, heavy traffic and pollution due to emissions, firecrackers and straw-burning witness a spike.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham (UK), the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-Delhi), the Central Road Research Institute (India) and the Desert Research Institute (US) found that road dust and soil levels in the air increase in summer when temperatures are high and rainfall is low. However, in winter, when a lot of people use wood and other substances for heating, lower temperatures — accompanied with little or no wind — can lead to a build-up of pollutants in the atmosphere.
Environmentalist and lawyer M.C. Mehta, who has been fighting consistently against pollution, says, “It is time people should sue the government. There is such lack of political will and lobbying that people are suffering.”
“Despite the court’s intervention, there is continuous pollution. People should be given compensation for health hazards due to pollution,” he says, adding that politicians visit the Western countries, waste money, see the tail of something and then implement things like BRT here, which turns to be a failure.
On September 29, three toddlers moved the Supreme Court seeking a ban on firecrackers, saying that they were being forced to grow up in a polluted city.
The father of one of the children and the lawyer who filed the petition, Gopal Shankar Narayan said suing the government wouldn’t really work.
“The government will end up giving compensation from our taxpayers’ money. Unless individual government officials are held responsible, nothing will change,” he said.
Environmental lawyer Sanjay Upadhyay, counsel for Vardhman Kaushik who moved the National Green Tribunal against the Centre on pollution says, “Suing the government for damages due to pollution is in the nature of torts. Sadly, quantification of damages due to pollution’s immediate impact does not happen in our country.”
He says people and the government are still in denial over the severity of pollution and checking pollution is anyway a shared responsibility.
Sanjay Jain, a trader from old Delhi says, “One will have to leave Delhi to be fit now. The government should be taken to task.”
Since pollution knows no borders, the Delhi Government, like other States, is looking towards the Centre to set more stringent norms. Whether it is noise pollution from firecrackers or the more efficient Bharat VI emission norms for vehicles, the decisions that impact Delhi’s air quality need to be taken by the Centre.
“What we lack unfortunately is a quicker move towards stringent norms at an all-India level,” said Ashwani Kumar, Delhi Government’s Secretary for Environment and Forest.
For instance, the State government is considering tightening noise pollution standards for firecrackers. However, that would be ineffective without a national-level norm. The Delhi Government has, however, strengthened the PUC norms for vehicles and will be setting up mobile monitoring stations for air pollution, said Mr. Kumar.
In 13 major cities, including Delhi, the Bharat IV norms, equivalent to Euro IV standards, are in place and the deadline for rollout of stricter Bharat VI norms is 2023. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javedekar has said he would like the deadline to be advanced, but the automobile industry has resisted the move.
The municipal corporations have failed to check on burning of waste. The National Green Tribunal had in April ordered a Rs.5,000-fine on burning leaves or garbage.
