The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to initiate prosecution against government officials who have not acted on 249 complaints received on its official social media and e-mail accounts with regard to pollution in Delhi.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said that the officials who have failed to act on the complaints were required to be prosecuted.

“Why do not you prosecute these officials? Let these people realise what they have done,” the bench told Additional Solicitor General ANS Nadkarni, who was appearing for the CPCB.

Plaints on social media

Nadkarni said that during November 1-22 this year, they had received 749 air pollution complaints on their social media accounts and action was taken on around 500 such complaints.

Regarding the court’s suggestion to prosecute the officials responsible for not acting on the complaints, he said that the CPCB would look into it.

The CPCB had on November 1 told the apex court that it has created social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook where citizens could lodge their complaints about pollution in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR).

In an affidavit filed in the court, the CPCB said that “of 749 complaints received on social media and e-mails till November 22, 2018, about 500 complaints (67 per cent of the total) were attended to by 52 teams of CPCB while associating with clean air campaign during November 1-10, 2018.”

Campaigns

It further said that the teams continued “similar campaign on its own on November 13 and November 20 to exclusively attend to the air pollution complaints received on social media and e-mails. Remaining 249 complaints have been assigned to respective nodal agencies and are in the process getting resolved.”

It said that in continuation to opening of social media accounts on October 29, CPCB has set up a separate cell for management of citizen’s complaints on social media being received through Facebook, Twitter, e-mails and CPCB’s website since November 5.

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