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PETITIONER: M.C. MEHTA ETC.

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

DATE OF JUDGMENT:       07/01/1998

BENCH: B.N. KIRPAL, V.N. KHARE

ACT:

HEADNOTE:

JUDGMENT:                 THE 7TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1998 Present:                  Hon’ble the Chief Justice                  Hon’ble Mr. Justice B.N. Kirpal                  Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.N. Khare Ashok H. Desai, Attorney General, M.S. Usgaonkar, Additional solicitor General, H.N. Salve, G.L. Sanghi, Sr. Advs., Mukul Mudgal, A.D.N.  Rao, Wasim A. Qadri, Ms. Niranjana Singh, P. Parameshwaran, Arvind  Kumar Sharma,  Ms. Indra Sawhney, Ms. Anubha Jain,  Shri Narain,  Sandeep Narain, Anis Ahmed Khan, Hardeep Singh  Anand, S.N.  Sikka, (Vijay  Panwani) Adv. for CPCB., Ranjit  Kumar, Kailash  Vasdev, Salman Khurshid, R.K. Khanna, Vineet  Kumar, Ejaz  Maqbool, R.  Sasiprabhu, Manish Garg, Anees  Ahmed, R.K. Gupta, K.K. Gupta, R.K. Maheshwari, Ashok Mathur,  V.B. Saharya,  Ejaz Maqbool, Satish Aggarwal, A.A. Khan,  L.K. Pandey,  S.B. Upadhyay,  S.R. Setia, Sanjay Parikh, D.K.  Garg, D.S.  Mehra, with them for the appearing parties. M.C. Mehta, Adv. : in-person for the petitioner                          O R D E R      The following Order of the Court was delivered: With WP(Cts)  9300/82, 939/96,  95//97, &  IA 7  in  WP  (C) 13029/85      Learned Attorney  General has  shown to us the draft of the order  proposed to  be made  by the Government of India, Ministry of  Environment and  Forests  in  exercise  of  the powers conferred by sub-sections 1 and 3 of Section 3 of the Environment protection  Act, 1986  constituting an Authority to be  known as  the environment  pollution (Prevention  and Control)  Authority   for  the   National   Capital   Region consisting of  the person,  namely, (1) Shri Bhure Lal;  (2) Shri D.K. Biswas, Chairman- Central Pollution Control Board: (3) Shri  Anil Aggarwal;  (4) Shri  Jagdish Khattar: and (5) Smt. Kiran  Dhingra and  to invest  the Authority  with  the powers and  functions   specified therein.  We are satisfied that this  step being taken by the Government is appropriate and timely.  We would,  however, like to add that except for the Chairman.  Central Pollution  Control Board being an ex- officio Member  of the Authority, the remaining four persons named above  are to be in the Committee not merely by virtue

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of their  office but  because of the personal qualifications on account  of which they are included in the Committee. The learned Attorney  General States that the order had not been formerly been made so far constituting the Authority because it was  considered appropriate  that  the  draft  be  placed before the  Court before  the order  was  finally  made.  He informed us  that in view of the approval of the same by the Court, the  order would  now be  made promptly  and the said Authority constituted soon.      In view  of the constitution of the Authority as above, to deal  with the  entire matter  relating to  environmental pollution, the question for our consideration now is whether the direction  given earlier  by this Court for constitution of an  Authority under  Section 3(3) of the Act by the order dated 13th September, 1996 in IA No. 18 in Writ Petition (c) No. 4677  of 1985  is required to continue. It is clear that the said  order dated  13th September,  1996 had  been  made because of  the absence  of any  such Authority  as  is  now because of the absence of any such Authority as is now being constituted in  the manner  aforesaid. For  this reason, the direction to  constitute an  Authority which was complied by constitution of  a Committee  headed  by  Mr.  Justice  R.K. Shukla, a  former judge  of the  Allahabad High  Court,  was merely  an   ad-hoc  arrangement   to  continue   till   the constitution of a regular committee as is now being done. it is also  necessary  to  take  note  of  the  fact  that  the constitution of  a Committee as above with the comprehensive authority  to  deal  with  the  entire  matter  relating  to environmental pollution  in the  National Capital Region the continuance  of   any  other   Authority   with   concurrent jurisdiction  in  any  area  within  the  entire  sphere  of environmental pollution  in the  National Capital  Region is bound  to   create  an  embarrassing  situation  because  of conflict of  jurisdiction of  the two Authorities within the common sphere.  Such a  result would  not be  conductive  to proper administration and implementation of the programme of preventing and  controlling environmental  pollution in  the National Capital Region. It is, therefore, necessary to make an appropriate  order which  would  avoid  any  conflict  of jurisdiction between  the two  Authorities. In  our opinion, the only  appropriate course  to  adopt  is  to  permit  the Government of  India to  supersede the  earlier Notification constituting   the Authority  headed  by  Mr.  Justice  R.K. Shukla pursuant  to the  order dated  13th  September,  1996 passed in  IA No.  18 in writ Petition (c) No. 4677 of 1985, to be  effective from  the date of constitution of the above Authority headed by Sh. Bhure lal. We direct accordingly and the earlier  order dated  13th September,  1996 shall  stand modified to this extent.      In view  of this  order, we  also direct  that with the constitution of the above Authority headed by Sh. Bhure Lal, the work  pending with the Authority headed by Mr. Justice R K  Shukla  shall  stand  automatically  transferred  to  the Committee headed  y Sh.  Bhure Lal  on its  constitution. We also place  on record  our appreciation  of the Work done by Mr. Justice  R k Shukla pursuant to the orders of this Court so that  during the intervening period, the work required to be done  urgently did  not suffer  on account of the efforts put in by Mr. Justice R.K. Shukla.      Order  dated   16th  December,   1997   requiring   the appointment of  private persons  to enforce  traffic  safety laws and  confer upon  such people suitable powers under the Cr. P.C. as well as under the Motor Vehicles Act shall apply not merely  to the Union of India but also to the Government of National Capital Territory.

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    List on 13th January, 1998.      WP(C) 9300 OF 1982      In view of the scope of Writ Petition (c) 13029 of 1985 (M C  Mehta vs.  UOI], it is not necessary to keep this Writ Petition Pending. It Is dismissed accordingly.