NGT fines Delhi Pollution Control Committee Rs 50,000 for delay in funds transfer

The National Green Tribunal has imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the Delhi Pollution Control Committee for an inordinate delay in transferring funds to the Delhi government’s forest and wildlife department.

Deprecating the “widely prevalent tendency” of non-compliance with its orders by “offering lame excuses”, NGT said the reasons for the delay in the transfer of the amount were “unacceptable”.

In November 2023, the green body directed the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to release Rs 8 lakh, collected as environmental compensation from four illegal stone crushing units in Nilothi village here, to the Department of Forest and Wildlife.

The Delhi government’s department was directed to use the amount for afforestation efforts in the village.

A bench of NGT Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava and expert member Afroz Ahmad, in a January 8 order that was made available on Tuesday, noted DPCC’s submission that the delay was due to the shifting of its office.

“We find the reasons given for the delay of more than one year in the transfer of the amount by DPCC to the Department of Forest and Wildlife, GNCTD, to be wholly unreasonable and unacceptable,” the bench said.

It said non-compliance with the tribunal’s order was an offence, and even the chairman and the member secretary of the DPCC were liable to be prosecuted for such violation.

“However, by taking a lenient view, we do not consider it appropriate to direct such prosecution. Yet, to curb the widely prevalent tendency of non-compliance with the orders passed by this tribunal and offering lame excuses for the same, we consider it to be necessary to impose appropriate costs on DPCC,” the tribunal said.

It directed DPCC to deposit Rs 50,000 as costs for non-compliance with the order, besides causing inconvenience and delay in remediation of the environmental damage.