The Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that TV debates are causing more air pollution than anything else and everybody has their own agenda while hearing cases relating to increasing air pollution in Delhi-NCR.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant said, “You want to use some issue, make us observe and then make it controversial and then only blame game will remain. Debates on TV are creating more pollution than everyone else. Everybody has their own agenda. They don’t understand anything.”
The observation of the Bench came as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for Centre raised the issue over television debates which claimed that he had misled the apex court on the contribution of stubble burning to air pollution.
“There have been nasty occurrences on TV to show that I misled the Court on stubble burning,” Mehta told the top court.
To this, Justice Chandrachud said, “We were not misled at all. You said 10 percent but it was pointed out in the affidavit that it was 30 to 40 per cent.”
The CJI also said, “This kind of criticism keeps happening. Our conscience is clear and we work for the betterment of society.”
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi representing the Delhi government told the Bench that said that the Centre’s figures on stubble burning contribution say that it varies from 0 to 58 percent.
Singhvi added, “Possibly Mr Tushar Mehta has taken a four or six-month average (to arrive at 10 percent).”
“We don’t want to penalise farmers. We have requested States to persuade the farmers to not burn stubble. Why are you, again and again, raising this,” the apex court told Singhvi.
