Slamming authorities for failing to curb hazardous levels of air pollution in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court on Monday said that they have left people to die. The Supreme Court said it will not tolerate this and will fix liability on the state governments. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta took serious note of crop burning in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and said it cannot go unabated every year. “Can we survive in this atmosphere? This is not the way we can survive,” the bench said. “Delhi is choking every year and we are not able to do anything. Question is that every year this is happening,” the bench said, adding, “It cannot be done in a civilised country”. The bench was told by senior advocate Aparajita Singh, who is assisting the apex court as an amicus curiae in the air pollution matter, that as per the Centre’s affidavit crop burning has gone up by 7 per cent in Punjab and is down by 17 per cent in Haryana. The bench called the pollution in Delhi-NCR as atrocious and said no one is safe even inside homes.
