The Supreme Court on Monday refused to relax
emergency measures under Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap)
dealing with air pollution in the national capital till it noticed a downward
trend in the AQI level.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George
Masih further sought the presence of the chief secretaries of NCR states to
appear through video-conferencing to inform it whether or not any compensation
was paid to the construction workers who were without work owing to the
restrictions.
Notably, there has to be a downward trend before the
Supreme Court relaxes Grap 4 restrictions.
The bench said the chief secretaries of NCR states
including Delhi, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan will have to appear through
video-conferencing at 3.30pm on December 5.
"There is hardly any implementation of stage 4
of Grap to deal with air pollution in the national capital, remarked the bench,
questioning the Delhi government on the number of officers deployed by it to
implement the restrictions, especially banning trucks from entering the
national capital.
The Delhi government, represented by senior advocate
Shadan Farasat, said it would look into allegations of non-compliance of the
Grap restrictions.
Farasat, however, asserted on the basis of 2-3
incidents it couldn't be said that the entire city of 1.5 crore population was
not complying with the restrictions.