Maharashtra casual towards noise pollution: Bombay High Court

The Bombay high court on Friday lashed out at the state government for failing to curb noise pollution in the city, criticising the “casual approach” of the state towards the issue.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice A.A. Sayed was dictating the final order on dozens of noise pollution PILs. The court said that on Thursday, the public prosecutor submitted a letter in court, which says that 1,843 noise level meters will be available to the police after 60 days.

“We are shocked to see the casual approach of the state while purchasing noise level meters. Like last year, this year too the police cannot not measure noise level in Dahihandi and Ganesh festivals,” said the court.

The court also directed the BMC to consider including noise mapping systems in the development plan so that noise pollution can be reined in.

The HC referred to various judgements of the Supreme Court and the Kolkata high court and observed that “no religion says prayer should be offered on a loudspeaker or public address system”. The court said that the apex court had mentioned in one of its judgements that “offering prayer on a loudspeaker is not an essential part of anyone’s religion”.

The court further said that when authorities started taking action against noise pollution, people approached the court and claimed their fundamental rights are being violated, which is “incorrect”.

Meanwhile, the high court also scrapped the rights the state government had given to the local authorities to decide three days on which people can play loudspeakers till 12 am. The high court said that the Supreme Court has given those rights only to the state government and the state can’t delegate these rights to any local authority.

The court also made it clear that when silence zones like educational institutions and hospitals want to use their ground and auditorium for functions, they too have to secure permissions from the appropriate authority.