With air pollution in Delhi reaching life threatening ‘severe plus’ levels, Supreme Court directed Delhi and NCR states - UP, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab - to strictly enforce stage IV of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) and immediately take a call on measures such as closing schools for all classes, allowing govt and private employees to work from home and shutting industries.
It also ordered that these restrictions would continue till further orders from the court, even if AQI drops below 401, the ‘severe’ category threshold. The judicial crackdown came on a day when Delhi suffered a dystopian nightmare with a thick layer of pungent smoke filling the air. The day’s average AQI was 494 at the highest end of ‘severe-plus’, the worst in eight years and the second-worst on record. The 24-hour average AQI maxed out at 500 at 15 stations at 5pm and citizens were left coughing and teary eyed even on short exposures to the toxic fumes.
The bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih slammed the “wait and watch” approach of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in enforcing Grap measures. It directed that commensurate measures must be enforced immediately after the AQI level crosses the threshold.
The bench said that the commission should not wait for improvement in quality of air on the basis of the met department’s forecast. SC administration also issued a circular in the evening advising all, including lawyers and judges, to wear masks.
Pleading for closure of all classes in schools, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan brought to court’s notice that Delhi govt was allowing physical classes for classes 10 and 12, and contended that same number of school buses were running on roads to ferry them. The court, thereafter, ordered, " States should take an immediate call to stop physical classes of all standards up to class 12.”
