“There is a mountain load of garbage in Delhi”, Supreme Court imposes costs on States and UTs

The Supreme Court today came down strongly upon States and Union Territories for failure to comply with its orders regarding solid waste management..Terming it a shocking state of affairs, the Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta imposed Rs. 1 lakh costs on ten States and two Union Territories who were present for hearing but had not complied with the Solid Waste Management Rules and orders of the Supreme Court. The remaining defaulting States who were not even present for the hearing, have been saddled with costs of Rs. 2 lakh..The following are the States and Union Territories which were present for the hearing but had not complied with the Rules and the orders of the court and were consequently, slapped with costs of Rs. 1 lakh – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Meghalaya, Punjab, West Bengal, Lakshadweep and Puducherry..States of Haryana, Jharkhand, Odisha, Nagaland and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Andaman and Nicobar Island having filed their affidavits, and the States of Sikkim, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Telangana and Union Territory of Daman and Diu having informed the court that their affidavits are ready and will be filed during the course of the day, escaped costs..The remaining defaulting States / UTs which were not present or not represented by lawyers were burdened with costs of Rs. 2,00,000..National Capital Territory of Delhi came in for some special treatment with the Court asking who is who is responsible for clearing the mountain load of garbage at Bhalswa, Okhla and Ghazipur – those answerable to the Lt. Governor or those answerable to the Chief Minister?.“There is a mountain load of garbage in Delhi, particularly in Bhalswa, Okhla, and Ghazipur..We would like to know who is responsible for clearing the garbage – those answerable to the Lt. Governor or those answerable to the Chief Minister.”.The Court in its order also noted,.“The tragedy is that more than two-third of the States / UTs in 4 the country have neither bothered to comply with the orders passed by the Court nor bothered to comply with the directions given by the MoEF, Government of India. This is not only a tragic state of affairs but a shocking state of affairs particularly, since solid waste management is a huge problem in this country.”.The Court then provided “one final opportunity” to the defaulting States to comply with the Rules failing which Chief Secretary of the concerned States / UTs will be summoned..“The States / UTs will give a copy of the affidavits as well as the State Policy and solid waste management strategy to the learned ASG appearing on behalf of the MoEF and the learned Amicus.”.The matter will be listed now on August 7. However, Delhi has to file its affidavit by tomorrow and its case will be taken up on July 12..Read the order below.