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Buddha Nullah pollution: PPCB withdraws criminal case against mayor, MC chief
Earlier, in July last year, PPCB had filed a criminal case against mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu, municipal corporation commissioner Kanwalpreet Kaur Brar, additional commissioner Sanyam Aggarwal and five other persons for failing to run the STPs properly.
Taking a U-turn in the criminal case filed in court against municipal officials over their alleged failure in efficiently running sewage treatment plants (STPs), thus leading to rise in Buddha Nullah’s pollution, the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) withdrew its case from court on Friday.
Earlier, in July last year, PPCB had filed a criminal case against mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu, municipal corporation (MC) commissioner Kanwalpreet Kaur Brar, additional commissioner Sanyam Aggarwal and five other persons for failing to run the STPs properly.
Mayor, MC commissioner and other officials appeared before the court on Friday, while the additional commissioner is on ex-India leave.
PPCB officials said the case was withdrawn after the state government and the civic body prepared an action plan for cleaning the nullah and upgrading the STPs.
On January 6, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh had approved a ₹650-crore project for Buddha Nullah’s rejuvenation, wherein the civic body will also be working to upgrade the three STPs situated at Jamalpur, Bhattian and Balloke.
Punjab Municipal Infrastructure development Board (PMIDC) has already floated a tender for the project.
“MC has started working on the project to rejuvenate the Buddha Nullah. The main aim of the case was to push the civic body to clean the nullah, and they had already gotten cracking,” said PPCB chairman Satwinder Singh Marwaha.
On the other hand, mayor Balkar Sandhu said PPCB dragging MC to court was not in good spirit, due to which the case was pulled back. “MC and the state government were already working to clean the nullah as it is their priority,” he said.
Meanwhile, PPCB law officer Amrik Singh said the case was withdrawn due to technical issues, and they were contemplating filing another case against the civic body in the future.
Soon after the pollution board filed the case, the mayor had trained guns at it for “failing to check disposal of untreated waste by industrial units in MC sewer lines, affecting efficiency of STPs”.
The mayor had also said the civic body will snap the sewer connections of dyeing units, if the industry failed to commission three common effluent treatment plants (CETP).
In its July case, PPCB had accused MC officials of operating the Balloke STP without taking consent under the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, and for poor operation of the Jamalpur STP. This, it had alleged, had added to the Buddha Nullah pollution.
Besides the mayor and two senior MC officials, the case also named superintendent engineer operation and maintenance (O&M cell) Rajinder Singh, O&M XEN Ranbir Singh and SDO Parsotam Lal as respondents. Two members of a private firm operating one of the STPs, Soni Bakshi and Gurjeet Singh, were also named in the case.
