The Supreme Court today lamented that it has been portrayed as villains by some sections of the media for prompting the closure of schools on account of the air pollution in Delhi, reports Bar and Bench.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant observed during today’s hearing,
“One thing what we observed is, whether intentional or unintentional, some sections of media portrays us that we are the villains who want to close down the schools. On your own you (Delhi government) opened the schools.. But see today’s newspapers.”
Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Delhi government concurred, saying,
“That is my complaint too. You must put the blame where it is. Today, one newspaper has conveyed in particular that the hearing was an aggressive combat and Court started to take up the administrative duty.”
He added that the fact that one newspaper is at variance with two others shows the falsity in the reportage.
“You can condemn all of this but where do we go? Where have we said we will take up administrative role?” CJI Ramana replied.
He went on to add,
“We cannot interfere with freedom of speech and expression and you are from a political party and can hold a press conference, but we cannot do so.”
At this point, Justice Chandrachud weighed in, saying,
“On judicial infrastructure issue ,we suggested if we can have a national body so that something constructive can be done…but what we say in court is twisted and it was stated that High Courts have to go with begging bowls.. when did we say that?”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta chimed in, quipping,
“Mark Twain had said if you don’t read newspapers, you are uninformed, and if you read them, then you are ill-informed.”
During the hearing, the Court also discussed the constitution of a task force to deal with the air pollution situation, as well as the deployment of flying squads. SG Mehta further told the Court that PNG industries will only be allowed to run for eight hours.
“If you close down thermal power plants, please let us know if there is an alternate source of power so that there is no deleterious impact on the power supply,” the Court added.
After the discussion on school closure, Senior Advocate Vikas Singh suggested,
“Why cannot they bring electric solar power plants so that there are no thermal plants?”
When the Court said they had already suggested this, Singh claimed that the affidavit filed by the Centre was to “ensure that the Court’s interference was minimal.”
To this, the Court replied,
“This is not an adversarial litigation. If government does everything, then there will be no PILs. They have already done what you wanted.”
Towards the end of the hearing, Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar for Uttar Pradesh said that closure of industries may affect sugar cane industries.
“UP is on down wind, air is mostly coming from Pakistan,” he said.
CJI Ramana responded,
“So you want to ban industries in Pakistan?”
The Court ultimately directed the Centre and the Delhi government to implement its orders of December 2. The matter will be taken up next on Friday, December 10.
