Please let people breathe fresh air: SC on plea against firecracker ban
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to consider an urgent plea for lifting the ban on firecrackers in Delhi and other places, saying, "Please let the people breathe fresh air. There are so many other ways of celebrations. You can spend your money on sweets."
A bench presided over by Justice M R Shah made the remark as advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha for BJP MP Manoj Tiwari contended the pollution in Delhi was rising due to burning of crop residue.
The court said would take up the matter but later.
In his plea, Tiwari sought a direction from the court to protect the interests of the public at large. He claimed the people were being harassed for celebrating Deepawali, deemed to be one of the most important festivals of Hindus.
"Despite clear order of this court refusing to put a blanket ban on the firecrackers, various state governments have put a blanket ban on the storage, sale and use of all types of firecrackers in year 2021 and subsequently taken coercive steps against the buyer, purchaser and users of the same. Now again in 2022, Delhi government has put a blanket ban on storage, sale and use of all types of firecrackers with immediate effect in the capital till 01.01.2023," it pointed out.
He said the top court had on October 29, 2021 clarified that there was no blanket ban on firecrackers and only those which contained barium salt were banned.
The plea filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey further claimed that such harassment of people not only violated freedom of expression and employment (Article 19), the right to life (Article 21) of people at large but also infringed freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion of people at large (Article 25) of the Constitution.
It is also the responsibility of the petitioner under fundamental duties (Article 51A) to file this petition so as to guide the country in a positive framework and avoid getting into the 'Dark Age' where customs and rituals of a particular community were systematically targeted, it added.
Tiwari asked the court to issue fresh guidelines to all the state governments with respect to selling, purchasing or bursting permissible firecrackers.
He also sought orders for framing any other guidelines to each and every state to not take any coercive action like lodging FIR, imposing Section 144 CrPC, etc against the common public in case of using or selling the permissible firecrackers during the upcoming festival seasons like Deepawali, Chhath, etc.
Tiwari also asked the court to issue directions to the states to reduce pollution including installation of smog towers, plantation drive, etc.