2 months ago
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The Supreme Court connected Tuesday (February 24, 2026) closed a suo motu lawsuit from 2021 connected remediation of polluted rivers aft 5 years of adjacent inaction. It directed the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to reopen the lawsuit and guarantee continued monitoring.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant questioned the feasibility of examining the grade of contamination successful rivers crossed the country.
“Is it imaginable for this tribunal to look astatine each the polluted rivers? We tin look astatine it 1 by one. We besides support entertaining truthful galore matters and contented directions... we besides person to spot that we entertain matters together. Why should we person a multiplicity of issues similar this?” Chief Justice Kant asked.
On January 13, 2021, the apex tribunal had taken suo motu cognisance of the contamination of rivers by sewage due to the fact that of lapses committed by municipalities, saying “open aboveground h2o resources, including rivers, are the lifeline of quality civilisation”.
“Deterioration of the prime of caller h2o has a nonstop co-relation with the prime of nationalist health... The close to a cleanable environment, and further, pollution-free water, has been protected nether the wide rubric of the close to life,” a three-judge Bench led by past Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde had said successful January 2021.
The Bench had been proceeding an urgent petition filed by the Delhi Jal Board to “immediately stop” Haryana from discharging pollutants into the Yamuna River.
