SC declines blanket bans on pollution: 'City can't be shut'

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to impose sweeping pollution-control measures such as a year-round construction ban or blanket curbs on vehicular movement in Delhi-NCR, saying the Capital cannot be brought to a standstill in the fight against toxic air.

- Utkarsh Anand

A bench led by Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai said the court could not halt economic activity or deprive thousands of migrant workers of their daily wages, even as forecasts indicated that air quality would worsen in the coming days.

Responding to senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who described Delhi as a gas chamber and urged the court to impose stringent year-round restrictions, the CJI said governance decisions must balance environmental concerns with livelihood realities. The bench, also comprising justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria, observed that daily wage labourers from states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh depend on continuous economic activity and that any measure that abruptly stops their work could inflict disproportionate harm.

“The solution proposed cannot be worse than the problem,” the court remarked, adding that extreme ideas such as permanent construction bans or blanket mobility restrictions were never contemplated under existing law.