NEW DELHI: People are more important than industries, the Supreme Court said today while taking note of a report that 60,000 people have died due to pollution.
The top court, which was hearing matters arising out of a 1985 PIL filed by environmentalist M C Mehta on the issue of air pollution in the Delhi-NCR, asked whether the Government had allowed pet coke import without studying its impact on the people’s health.
A bench of Justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta also pulled up the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for seeking time to study the impact of ban on import of pet coke used in industries as fuel.
“You seem very keen to allow the import of pet coke. Were you earlier allowing import of pet coke in the country without even conducting the study? The other day newspapers reports said that 60,000 people died due to pollution. What are you doing? People are dying in the city due to huge amount of pollution,” the bench said.
“We don’t know whether the newspaper report is correct or a fake news. But your reports have also earlier indicated that people have lost lives due to pollution,” it said.
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