New Delhi: A city court has sent a bakery
unit owner here to jail for two years and slapped a total fine
of Rs 3.5 lakh on him for discharging untreated waste into the
Yamuna, saying such an insensitive approach has led to
pollution in the river.
It is only because of the insensitivity of the people
like the bakery unit owner that "the current generation is
unable to have a pure and clean Yamuna and thus is deprived of
the use of natural resources," the court said, adding that the
appellant had "not cared for the principle of
intergenerational equity."
Awarding the jail term to Vikas Bansal and imposing Rs
2.5 lakh as environment compensation on him to be paid to the
Prime Minister's relief fund on Vikash Bansal, Special Judge
Sanjay Kumar Aggarwal said the Delhi-based bakery unit Haryana
Paneer Bhandar, in which he was a partner, had polluted Yamuna
by discharging untreated waste in it.
The court additionally imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on
Bansal, holding him guilty under various provisions of the
Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974.
Highlighting the principle of intergenerational equity,
the court said it was the onerous duty of citizens to
pass on the natural resources to their next generations.
"Rivers are considered as sources of life in this
agrarian country. The rivers have cultural, spiritual and
religious connotations. However, it is also a fact that we are
unable to ensure the physical protection of rivers owing to
industrialisation, urbanisation etc," the court, in its 44-
page judgement, said.
The victims of pollution of sacred water bodies are not
individuals but collective members of the society at large, it
said.
"Since the society has suffered due to polluting the
stream and consequently river Yamuna ..., it would be
appropriate to consider the aspect of compensation in addition
to sentence of imprisonment and fine," the court said.
The sessions court, however, reduced the jail term to two
years from three years awarded to Bansal earlier by the
magisterial court.
A vigilance squad of the Delhi government had on June 5,
2000, inspected the bakery unit of Bansal which was used to
prepare sweets and namkeens and found that it was discharging
all untreated effluents generated during the process into the
public sewer.
Bansal had questioned the inspection and claimed that
when the standards for proper discharge of effluents were
issued on June 21, 2000, how could his unit commit an offence
when the inspection had been carried out on an earlier date of
June 5.
The court dismissed his claim and said that the apex
court has time and again for several years sensitised such
units about the rise in pollution.
