HC chides govt for ‘noisy’ Ganeshotsav

Mumbai: While the Supreme Court lifted the Bombay high court stay on loudspeakers and restrained the HC from passing any further orders banning loudspeakers in Maharashtra, the HC on Thursday held a hearing on compliance of court orders in the noise pollution PILs filed by various NGOs. While chiding the state for not treating HC orders seriously, the court told the state that it would have to comply. The court also asked the state and BMC to submit details of action taken against pandals that violated noise norms during the recently concluded Ganeshotsav festival.

A division bench of Justice A.S. Oka and Riyaz Chagla was hearing PILs seeking directions to the government to strictly implement the provisions of the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000 during festivals. The HC also went through two reports pertaining to inspection of pandals carried out by revenue department officials during the Ganesh festival and told the court that the same had been provided to concerned civic bodies too.   

After going through the report the court asked government pleader Abhina-ndan Vagyani to get them re-verified. The court said: “Everything is just on paper. We do not understand why the state government is taking this matter as adversarial. You may disrespect our orders but you still have to comply with it”.  The HC had directed the government to procure decibel meters for every police station for recording noise levels during festivals or other events and taking action against violators. It had also directed the revenue department to inspect illegal pandals and report them to BMC.

On September 1, the SC had lifted the Bombay HC stay on the state’s decision to do away with the 1,593 deemed silence zones. The state had sought to remove the silence zones due to an amendment in the Noise Pollution Rules affected by the central government in August, 2017 but the HC had refused it, following which the state approached the apex court and got the stay lifted.