New Delhi: In an order dated August 26, the Supreme Court has directed the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to take a decision on a petition challenging the constitution and functioning of the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA).
“Let the representation be considered objectively and be decided within three months. The Government of India to file a decision taken with regard to constitution/jurisdiction before this Court before implementing it,” the apex court said in the order.
The EPCA was constituted in 1998 with the aim of ‘protecting and improving’ the quality of the environment and ‘controlling environmental pollution’ in the National Capital Region. However, according to the petitioner’s counsel, Ritwick Dutta, ‘it is at best an authority for Delhi’.
In a two-part series that he wrote for The Wire in November 2018, Dutta dissected the EPCA’s performance and its constitution. “There is no representative from any other state other than Delhi. As such, the EPCA can hardly be called an authority representing the NCR region,” he wrote.
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The EPCA constitutes 20 members who are representatives of NGOs, research organisations, government bodies, municipal councils, educational institutions and automobile bodies.
“Even though EPCA’s mandate is to look into environmental pollution for the entire NCR, the members are only from (the) NCT[footnote]National Capital Territory[/footnote] of Delhi. There are no members from states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — either from government departments or from civil society groups. This is a serious issue, since the EPCA was constituted not as Delhi-centric authority but an authority having its jurisdiction, over the entire NCR which covers 54,984 kms over (the) districts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan,” the petition reads.
Other than the 11 districts of Delhi, the NCR also includes 14 districts of Haryana, 8 districts of Uttar Pradesh and two districts of Rajasthan.
Raising questions of conflict of interest, the petitioners have highlighted the presence of Vishnu Mathur who is director general of the society of automobile manufacturers in a panel whose mandate it is to keep air pollution – among other kinds – under check. “SIAM’s main role is to promote the growth of the automobile industry and its members have stated in public that they are opposed to any restriction on the use of diesel cars,” Dutta had written last year.
The petitioners have also said that despite being a special authority with ‘all the powers of the Central government’, the EPCA has failed to act based on the complaints of citizens. “Till today, the EPCA has not acted on any complaint. It is not even clear how citizens can file a complaint and how they will be heard,” Dutta told The Wire.
The petition has sought the court’s intervention to direct the MoEFCC[footnote]Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change[/footnote] to reconstitute the EPCA and include members from across NCR for better representation. It has also asked the court to direct the EPCA to develop an effective grievance redressal system to ensure that citizens can approach the body with their complaints, which are then addressed.
Now, the court has directed the MoEFCC to consider the points raised in the petition and act as it deems fit and inform the court. The ministry has three months until the matter is heard again.