The Supreme Court
said Monday that it might consider undertaking an audit of the Delhi government’s
spending on advertisements as it observed that the Arvind Kejriwal government
was “passing the buck” on tackling the national capital’s air pollution
troubles. The apex court stressed on urgent measures to tackle the current
crisis and submit an action plan by Tuesday evening.

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Additionally, the
apex court told Delhi as well as neighbouring states including Punjab and
Haryana, to consider work-from-home for employees. The court pressed upon the
government to convince farmers to stop burning crop stubble for a week.

Also Read | Pollution lockdown? WFH? Delhi mulls ways to tackle air quality crisis

According to the
Supreme Court, pollution due to factories, transportation, dust and stubble
burning have contributed to the current drop in air quality. Questioning the
Delhi government on measures, Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana asked, “What
drastic measures are you taking? Forget affidavits. Road dust…what are you
doing on that?”

The Delhi
government submitted an affidavit before the Supreme Court ahead of the hearing
in which it stated that it was ready to impose a strict lockdown but said that
a lockdown would have limited impact and other nearby states would also have to
impose similar restrictions.

The apex court’s
charge of “passing the buck” against the Delhi government was expressed when
the lawyer representing the Delhi government said that the Mayor of the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which is controlled by the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), can file an affidavit on how many mechanical road sweeping
machines are needing to counter road dust pollution.

“Are you trying to
put the blame on municipal corporations? Are you trying to pass the buck?” the
Supreme Court asked.

Justice Surya Kant
of the Supreme Court said, “These kinds of lame excuses will force us to hold a
proper audit of the revenues you are earning and spending on popularity
slogans.”

Justice Surya Kant
also reprimanded governments for blaming farmers for air pollution. He asked
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, “Are you agreeing in principle that stubble
burning is not a major cause.” To which, Tushar Mehta replied, “Yes”.

Solicitor General
Tushar Mehta submitted an affidavit before the Supreme Court Monday in which it
observed that only four per cent of the toxic air in Delhi is due to stubble
burning. The scientific report that the Centre cited says the contribution of
agricultural burning to PM 2.5 is 4% in winter.

“The cat is out of
the bag. Farmers are blamed needlessly. The percentage is insignificant,” said
Justice DY Chandrachud.