Supreme Court slams states over pollution panel vacancies

The top court found that Delhi fared the worst with 233 out of 344 sanctioned posts in the Delhi Pollution Control Committee lying vacant

The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up Delhi and the adjoining states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab for rendering pollution control boards “toothless”, with some of these bodies functioning at less than half the sanctioned strength, and directed their chief secretaries to submit a timebound plan within three weeks to fill up all vacant posts.

On April 22, the court had asked Delhi and adjoining states to submit a status report on the pending vacancies in PCBs. (ANI)

In an order passed by a bench headed by justice AS Oka, the top court found that Delhi fared the worst with 233 out of 344 sanctioned posts in the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) lying vacant. “This is a sad state of affairs that in the capital city also, the pollution control body is hardly functional with only one-third posts functioning,” said the bench, also comprising justice Augustine George Masih.

The court got figures from the adjoining states, too, with Haryana reporting 202 vacancies out of 483 sanctioned posts, Rajasthan 476 out of 808 posts, Punjab 315 vacancies against nearly 650 posts, and Uttar Pradesh still requiring to fill 145 out of the 732 posts in the state’s pollution control board (PCB).

“It shows a sorry state of affairs. We have noted the scenario in Rajasthan and Punjab so far as filling up of PCB posts are concerned, but as far as situation in Delhi is concerned, the situation is worst,” it said.

Delhi has a perennial pollution problem, which is exacerbated during winter. The city has consistently ranked among the most polluted Capitals of the world over the past decade, and alleviatory measures have failed to improve the situation.

According to a report published in Lancet Planetary Health in the first week of July, across 10 major cities in India — Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Shimla, and Varanasi – around 33,000 deaths every year are attributable to PM 2.5 (fine particulate matter) pollution levels that breach the WHO guideline of 15 micrograms per cubic metres. The national standard for PM 2.5 (24 hours) is 60 micrograms per cubic metres. In terms of proportion, Delhi recorded the highest deaths attributable to air pollution across all cities studied – 11.5% of all deaths – amounting to 12,000 each year.

Emphasising the need to have PCBs functioning at full strength, the bench said, “These authorities exercise very important statutory functions under the Environment Protection Act, Air Act, Water Act etc., and with nearly one-third posts vacant, these authorities will be rendered toothless. Is it the desire of the states that PCBs should not function.”

With regard to Delhi, the court observed yet another disturbing feature that instead of regular appointments, workers were employed at various levels on a contractual basis. The court took exception to such a “short-cut” method employed in Delhi and said, “This practice needs to be deprecated.”

The Delhi government’s forest and environment department is already facing the ire of the court in another matter for granting permission to fell 422 trees in the south Delhi ridge area. The court on June 24 called for an explanation from the principal secretary of the Delhi forests department for allowing this by usurping the function of the Tree Authority, entrusted with the grant of such permission under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act.

As the ridge matter is also pending before a bench headed by justice Oka, he remarked, “This is how your department functions. Persons manning the department have no sensitivity towards environment.”

Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, assisting the court as amicus curiae, pointed out that except for UP and Haryana, the vacancy figures have remained stagnant for the other states over the past seven months. She cited the state-wise vacancy figures in PCBs submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in November last year showing identical figures. According to her, no fresh steps have been taken to fill up the vacancies. In the case of Punjab, she added that the state sought time to resume filling up the posts after conclusion of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Punjab advocate general Gurminder Singh told the court that selections to almost 100 posts are underway. The court said, “It is important that PCB works at full strength or else it will have an adverse impact on the environment.”

While Rajasthan had a significantly large number of vacancies in its PCB, the court found it “shocking” that the state initiated selection process for only 56 posts. While the selection to one of the posts was mired in litigation before the Rajasthan high court, the court refused to buy this excuse as it gave a common direction to all chief secretaries to file a personal affidavit in three weeks giving timelines for filling up all existing vacancies in PCBs.

Uttar Pradesh was the only state which failed to file an affidavit before the court. On April 22, the court had asked Delhi and adjoining states to submit a status report on the pending vacancies in PCBs. Additional advocate general for UP Garima Parshad that the vacancy figure which stood at 325 as per the CPCB report submitted in November 2023 has been brought down to 145.

According to the figures contained in the CPCB report, out of the sanctioned posts of 11,969 of Grade A, B, C and D employees working in PCBs across the country, more than 6,000 posts are lying vacant.

A DPCC official said they were working to fill vacancies, but denied that 233 posts were vacant at present. “Based on posts created under the DPCC, there are 207 vacancies. However, we have hired 127 contractual staff members too, effectively meaning only 80 posts are presently vacant,” the official said, on condition of anonymity.