NEW DELHI: "Please let the people breathe fresh air. There are so many other ways of celebrations. You can spend your money on sweets," the Supreme Court on said on Thursday, while refusing to consider an urgent plea for lifting the ban on firecrackers.
A bench presided over by Justice M R Shah said it would take up the matter later, as the counsel for BJP MP Manoj Tiwari contended the pollution in Delhi was rising due to burning of crop residue.
In his plea, Tiwari sought a direction from the court to protect the interests of the public at large, being harassed for celebrating Deepawali, deemed to be one of the most important festival of Hindus.
"Despite of the clear order of this court refusing to put a blanket ban on the firecrackers, various state governments have put a blanket ban on the storage, sale and use of all types of firecrackers in year 2021 and subsequently taken coercive step against the buyer, purchaser and users of the same. Now again in year 2022, Delhi government has put a blanket ban on storage, sale and use of all types of firecrackers with immediate effect in the capital till 01.01.2023," it pointed out.
The plea settled by advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha and filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey further claimed that such harassment of people not only violated freedom of expression and employment (Article 19), the right to life (Article 21) of people at large but will also infringe freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion of people at large (Article 25) of the Constitution.
It is also the responsibility of petitioner under fundamental duties (Article 51A) to file this petition so to guide the country in a positive framework and avoid it from getting in the 'Dark Age' where customs and rituals of a particular community were systematically targeted, it added.
Tiwari asked the court to issue a fresh guidelines to all the state governments in respect to selling, purchasing or bursting permissible fire-crackers.
He also sought orders for framing any other guidelines to each and every state to not take any coercive action like lodging FIR, imposing Section 144 CrPC, etc against the common public in case of using or selling the permissible firecrackers during the upcoming festival seasons like Deepawali, Chhath, etc.
Tiwari also asked the court to issued directions to the states to reduce the pollution including installation of smog-towers, plantation drive, etc.
