Top Court Raps States Over Stubble-Burning, "Time To Punish Officers"

Top Court Raps States Over Stubble-Burning,  "Time To Punish Officers" 

New Delhi: Stubble burning has to be controlled and inability to do that will take the country back by 100 years, the Supreme Court said today while hearing the plea of pollution control body Environment Pollution Control Authority or EPCA . The court rejected the suggestions of the Attorney General that it is not possible to control two lakh farmers who burn stubble. "If stubble burning is the only way then this is the end," the top court said.

At the hearing that's attended by the Chief Secretaries of the Centre, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana, Attorney General KK Venugopal had said 44 per cent of the polluting haze that's sweeping over the north India comes from stubble burning.

"Farmers say it will affect livelihood and they have no other way," he said.

"If Haryana can control why not Punjab? Nobody tried organic means," the court shot back.
 
The two-judge bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta also severely reprimanded Punjab government for its failure to control stubble burning. Calling it "pure inaction of the government", Justice Mishra said, "Time has come to punish the officers".