New Delhi: After 40 years of courtroom battles, thousands of pages of orders, and multiple pollution control bodies, Delhi’s air still turns poisonous every winter with countless complaining of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.
Every year, petitions reach the Supreme Court, prompting its benches to order fuel transitions, relocation of industries, emergency action plans, or pull up state governments for inaction. Despite the judiciary’s persistent efforts over the years, the average Delhiite finds no respite from the toxic gas chamber that the national capital has become.
“We want to see long-term and short-term plans and we will keep taking the case up. None of the cities of the country were developed to accommodate this scale of population or with the thought that each home will have multiple cars,” a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice J. Bagchi observed Monday as it questioned the rationale of blaming stubble burning solely for Delhi’s air pollution.
The bench added it would examine whether measures are genuinely implemented or “are on paper only”.
Just last week, the apex court remarked that it does not have a “magic wand” to solve the air pollution crisis and must rely on experts for workable solutions—a candid admission of the limits of judicial intervention.
ThePrint looks at the Supreme Court’s interventions and directives over four decades that include fuel transitions, industrial closures, AQI-based regulation, and enforcement monitoring.
Judicial awakening (1980s–1990s)
Judicial involvement began in the mid-1980s, when environmentalist-lawyer M.C. Mehta filed a series of petitions challenging Delhi’s hazardous air. In 1985, the SC first turned its attention to the toxic mix of vehicular emissions, industrial smoke, and unregulated fuel burning.
Landmark rulings such as Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1988) and M.C. Mehta v. Union of Indi (1987) elevated the right to a clean environment to a fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
In November 1996, the court ordered closure or relocation of hundreds of industrial units operating illegally in residential areas. Nearly 1,300 highly polluting industries and all 246 brick kilns identified within Delhi were shut or moved.
A watershed moment came in July 1998, when the court mandated that Delhi’s entire public transport fleet switch from diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG) by April 2001. Commercial vehicles older than 15 years were also banned. This order remains among India’s most consequential pollution-control interventions.
Around the same period, in the Taj Trapezium Zone (1996–1997) case, 292 industries near Agra were ordered to shift from coal to natural gas or relocate outside the 10,400 sq. km. zone. The reason: “acid rain” and “marble cancer” were harming the Taj Mahal whose marble blocks were turning yellow.
Applying the polluter pays principle, the court directed industries to bear the cost of switching to cleaner fuels or shut down.
Also Read: Delhi’s air was toxic for 56% of the days in last 5 years, AQI no reliable measure—CAG report
Institutionalising management (2000s-2015)
By the early 2000s, the SC moved towards institutional management. In 1998, it empowered the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) to monitor industrial fuel use, vehicular norms, landfill fires, and dust pollution.
EPCA’s routine inspections triggered directions on Pollution Under Control (PUC) certification, phasing out diesel gensets, and tightening construction norms. But Delhi’s vehicle numbers surged, waste mismanagement grew, and enforcement lagged. By the early 2010s, winter smog worsened—highlighting that episodic orders could not substitute consistent governance.
In October 2020, EPCA was dissolved and replaced by the statutory Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to monitor and manage air quality in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR).
GRAP & AQI-based regulation (2016-19)
In 2016, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued strong orders on unchecked construction, landfill fires, and waste burning. Combined with Supreme Court directions, this led to the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), implemented from 2017.
GRAP introduced stage-wise actions based on the Air Quality Index (AQI), including bans on diesel gensets, construction halts, and truck-entry restrictions when air turned “severe” or “severe plus”.
For the first time, Delhi had an AQI-linked emergency rulebook. But, enforcement remained its weakest link.
Stubble burning & regional governance (2019-22)
Until 2018, litigation largely centred on Delhi’s internal pollution sources. That shifted in 2019, when the Supreme Court formally recognised stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh as a central cause of winter smog. The court explicitly directed these states to take immediate steps to halt residue burning.
A turning point came from the Arjun Gopal petition filed in 2015, asserting that polluted air violated rights under Article 21. A bench led by Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan imposed the first-ever regulation on firecrackers in 2018.
A bench led by Justice Madan B.Lokur began focusing specifically on farm fires in 2017 and directed the central government to take action, which led to the formation of a task force and initial recommendations for incentivising farmers to stop stubble burning.
The bench issued various directions to the central and state governments to tackle the problem, which included the aspect of incentivising farmers.
During this period, the bench’s focus was on using existing mechanisms to curb pollution. The specific formation of a one-man monitoring committee led by Justice Lokur occurred later, in October 2020, by a different bench led by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde. This panel was tasked with physically monitoring stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana, and UP and reporting fortnightly to the apex court, with assistance from student bodies like the NCC.
In 2019 and 2020, the court ordered states to stop stubble burning, warned chief secretaries of contempt, banned construction, and declared Delhi’s air a “public health emergency.” It even proposed withholding Minimum Support Price (MSP) from farmers who continued residue burning.
In 2021, a bench of Justices M.R. Shah and A.S. Bopanna clarified that there is no total ban on use of firecrackers. “Only those firecrackers are banned… which are found to be injurious to health and affecting the health of the citizens, more particularly the senior citizens and the children.”
Throughout the late 2010s, the NGT issued tough directions on regional pollution, including that of making adoption of zigzag technology (that reduce carbon and particulate matter emissions) mandatory for brick kilns, ban of construction during severe pollution spells, while projects lacking adequate dust-control systems were halted.
The tribunal repeatedly criticised states for failing to curb open waste burning and emphasised the need to assess each region’s carrying capacity, not just emission norms.
CAQM & renewed scrutiny (2021-2025)
The CAQM Act (2021) created a permanent regulator for Delhi-NCR, tasked with implementing GRAP, monitoring industrial fuels, checking waste burning, and overseeing satellite monitoring of farm fires.
But smog persisted, and the Supreme Court intensified its watch. In November 2024, after AQI reached “severe plus,” the court castigated CAQM for delayed action, ordered immediate GRAP Stage IV enforcement, suspended in-person classes for children, and demanded checks across 113 truck-entry points.
By 2025, the apex court was demanding affidavits explaining why many air-quality monitoring stations were still non-functional.
On 19 November, then CJI B.R. Gavai gave CAQM full authority to impose work-from-home and 50 percent attendance measures—typically part of GRAP IV— even during GRAP III, provided stakeholders were consulted.
A week before Diwali, in October, the CJI-led bench gave a green signal to the manufacturing and sale of green firecrackers, with limited time slots only.
In May, the Supreme Court reprimanded the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), warning that delays in recruitment would amount to “aggravated contempt.” Only 83 of 204 posts were filled, a 55 percent vacancy rate.
“We cannot tolerate the laxity shown by the Delhi government especially when Delhi is worst affected by air pollution,” Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan remarked.
The court directed that all 204 posts be filled by September and ordered anticipatory recruitment six months in advance.
Haryana had 35 percent vacancies, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh both had 45 percent vacancies and Delhi (DPCC) had 55 percent vacancies, according to a September affidavit.
“Therefore, we can safely say that, as far as the DPCC is concerned, it is nonfunctional,” the court concluded.
It held that Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had willfully breached its 27 August, 2024 direction to fill all vacancies by April 2025. Contempt notices were issued to chief secretaries of all four states.
Separately, the court noted that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) was functioning with around 21 percent vacancies, calling it a “very sorry state of affairs.”
The court’s attention then went to several monitoring stations that were non-operational, directing the CAQM to file affidavits listing functional and non-functional stations.
In one instance, it noted that “only 9 of 37 monitoring stations worked on Diwali,” undermining GRAP’s AQI-triggered enforcement.
The bench criticised the ‘wait-and-watch’ approach and said incomplete data during peak smog was unacceptable.
Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, who has been appointed as amicus curiae in the bunch of cases arising out of writ petitions filed by M.C. Mehta seeking strengthening of air quality management monitoring network, informed the court that the chairperson, full-time members, member secretary, as well as officers find it very difficult to get proper residential accommodation in Delhi”.
Also Read: Delhi’s air pollution is of its own making. Stubble burning not the main culprit, says CSE
Lackadaisical attitude?
Dipankar Saha, former head of the CPCB’s Air Laboratory Division, who worked in Delhi for 12 years, did not comment on specific court directions but stressed that there can be no laxity in implementing air-quality mandates.
Agencies, he said, must be held accountable if they fail to perform duties for which public funds are being spent.
“Have straight questions and straight answers. We have rules about proper management—they just need to be implemented,” he told ThePrint, adding that there should be a quarterly audit of the performance of officials, clearly identifying why implementation failures occur.
“If they are not able to maintain public health in their given area, it is their failure as well as the system’s failure—for which the public is suffering— which is unacceptable.”
On the vacancy crisis in pollution control boards highlighted by the Supreme Court, Saha was unequivocal: “If the Board is feeling that there are inadequate posts, they should go and put up a proposal for the same. But, most of the Boards are working at the mercy of the respective government.”
Although he declined to evaluate the court’s rulings, Saha reiterated that inadequate staffing directly affects enforcement. “Inadequate staff leads to inadequate performance, which further leads to more public suffering.”
The government must first understand the scale of the problem and formulate a clear plan, without which implementation becomes impossible, according to him.
Saha criticised the government for failing to support pollution-control agencies and the Boards for failing to consistently flag manpower and infrastructure gaps. “The Board should repeatedly request and flag their gaps—because of which people are going to be suffering in this area.”
He stressed that greater transparency is essential. “The system came into force for this very reason.”
Saha also called for transparent job descriptions that clearly define responsibilities, coupled with regular performance audits to reinforce accountability. The routine excuse of manpower shortages, he said, should not exist in the first place. “Such organisations were created with some mandate. If the mandate is not being fulfilled or mandatory programmes are not being implemented, then it is a failure of the organisation.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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