Create machinery for effective implementation of firecracker ban: SC to NCR states

New Delhi [India], April 3 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Thursday directed all NCR states to create the machinery for effectively implementing the firecracker ban, and ensure that preventive as well as coercive steps are taken against violators.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan asked the NCR states to file affidavits regarding the machinery they propose to set up for effective implementation of the firecracker ban.
The top court remarked that the report submitted by the Union of India states that if green crackers are burst, the emission is 30 per cent less than the conventional firecrackers.
Unless it is shown that the pollution caused by the "so-called Green crackers" is a bare minimum, there is no question of giving them a relaxation, said the bench as it refused to relax its order on ban on firecrackers, including green crackers, in the Delhi-NCR area.

"Nobody has considered yet the noise pollution created by firecrackers," remarked the bench, adding that fast measures are required to control the pollution.
Even online sales of firecrackers will remain banned, said the bench.
Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, assisting the apex court as amicus curiae in the matter, told the bench that Delhi and Haryana have implemented the court's order of banning the online sale of firecrackers, but Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have not banned it yet.
The apex court ordered Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to ban online sale of firecrackers and submit compliance affidavits within a period of two weeks.
"The Air pollution level remained alarming for a considerably long time. One can imagine the effect of air pollution on the common man as everyone cannot afford to have air purifiers at their residence or place of work. There is a section of population who works on streets and they are the worst affected by this pollution. After all right to health is an essential part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, so is right to live in a pollution-free atmosphere," said the bench.
The apex court was hearing a case relating to air pollution in the national capital. (ANI)