Supreme Court raps Centre, Punjab, Haryana on farm fires, cites right to clean air

As air quality continues to deteriorate in Delhi-NCR due to stubble burning, the Supreme Court on Wednesday faulted the Centre and the governments of Punjab and Haryana for inaction and reminded them of citizens’ right to clean environment.

“Time has come for us to remind the Government of India and state governments that there is a fundamental right vesting in every citizen under Article 21 of the Constitution to live in a pollution-free environment,” a three-judge Bench led by Justice AS Oka said.

The Bench, which also included Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice Augustine George Masih, pulled up the governments of Punjab and Haryana for not prosecuting all errant farmers and letting them off with small fines. As the Centre said Section 15 of the Environmental Protection Act, 1986, which provides for penalty, has been amended, the Bench said the Act had become “toothless”.

“What action has been taken by you under Section 14 against erring officials? We will take the Union of India to task as they submit that Section 15, which provides for penalty, has been amended. You don’t have the adjudicating officer to enforce it. The Environmental Protection Act has been made toothless,” it said.

As the Bench criticised both the states for being selective in registering cases and collecting compensation from violators for causing farm fires leading to air pollution, Punjab Advocate General Gurminder Singh said penalising and punishing farmers wasn’t the ultimate solution to the problem. Haryana Senior Additional Advocate General Lokesh Sinhal submitted the state was giving incentives to farmers to persuade them for crop diversification and use of machinery to check stubble burning and air pollution. Asking the Centre to consider amending the law to increase the environment compensation cess levied on farmers who indulged in stubble burning and officials who failed to Act, the Centre posted the matter for hearing after Diwali break.

In terms of the previous order, the Chief Secretaries of Punjab and Haryana were present in court to explain “inaction” on the part of the two states. The Haryana Chief Secretary said this year instances of stubble burning had reduced considerably. But the Bench was not impressed.

The top court rapped the Punjab Government for collecting nominal fines of Rs 2,500 each from errant farmers, saying it amounted to giving a licence to violate. “That’s incredible! We will tell you very frankly that you are giving a signal to violators that nothing will be done against them. This has been for the past three years,” Justice Oka said.

Gurminder said 1,510 farm fires were reported till October 21 this year; 1,084 FIRs were filed and Rs 12.60 lakh fine was imposed on 473 violators and an amount of Rs 11 lakh was recovered. “As far as Haryana is concerned, there are 419 cases identified. FIRs have been lodged only against 32 of the wrongdoers, and only in case of 320 wrongdoers, nominal compensation has been recovered,” it noted. The Bench sought to know why such a large number of violators were not proceeded against.

“We find that both the state governments are picking and choosing while collecting compensation. Therefore, unless there is proper exercise of power under Section 15 of the Act, there cannot be any effective action against the farmers,” it noted.

Maintaining that Punjab was committed to the cause of reducing and finally eradicating stubble burning, Gurminder submitted that the problem needed to be examined at a more humane level.

Though imposition of fine and registration of FIRs acted as a deterrent, it was not a long-term solution which could only be achieved by encouraging and incentivising the farmers to shun stubble burning.

He said the state’s proposal regarding sanction of funds for crop residue management incentive was not accepted by the Centre and a fresh proposal for release of funds had been sent on October 19. “We direct the government of India to look within two weeks into the proposal submitted by the state of Punjab for release of additional funds so that provision for making available tractors, drivers and diesel can be made to those farmers whose holding is less than 10 hectares,” it ordered.