The Supreme Court on Wednesday suggested the government consider sending “some” farmers to jail to curb the menace of illegal stubble burning, asking the Centre and the states to adopt a “carrot-and-stick” policy.
Stubble burning is one of the main reasons behind the spike in pollution in the Delhi-NCR region during winter.
A bench of Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran warned that if the authorities do not come out with a suitable policy to prevent farmers from burning stubble, the court would be forced to pass a mandamus (judicial direction) for compliance with its orders.
CJI Gavai orally told additional solicitor-general Aishwarya Bhatti, appearing for the Centre, and senior advocate Rahul Mehra for the Punjab government: “Farmers are special for us, and we are eating our food because of them, but it does not mean that we can’t protect the environment.”
CJI Gavai continued: “Why don’t you have some penal provisions to tackle them? If some people are put behind bars, it will send the correct message.”
The court made the oral observation while dealing with a suo motu petition initiated in the wake of the large-scale vacancies in the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and state pollution control boards of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
“Why don’t you think of a penal provision? Why are you fighting shy of it? Farmers have to be brought in for the protection of the environment. There cannot be any immunity for anyone. You take a call, otherwise we will issue a mandamus,” the CJI warned.
Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, representing Punjab, said the state had taken several measures to combat the problem of stubble burning but cautioned that putting farmers in jail would not be a solution as many of them were poor.
“If you pick a small farmer and put him behind bars, then his family will suffer. Every such family has five-six members,” Mehra said. Quoting statistics, he said that in the last two years, incidents of stubble burning had come down from 77,000 to just 10,000.
Senior advocate Aprajita Singh, assisting the court as an amicus curiae, told the bench that though the court had passed a series of orders since 2018 to combat pollution on account of stubble burning, the states were not taking the issue seriously.
“Farmers are being told to burn stubble at a particular time when the satellite does not pass over the state...,” Singh told the bench, alleging that officials were encouraging farmers to burn stubble. She said even measures like subsidies to burn the stubble through scientific methods had failed.
The CJI said the government must encourage the farmers with subsidies and other measures to wean them away from the practice of stubble burning, but iterated that if they didn’t fall in line, drastic steps must be taken.
“Give them the carrot, but also have a stick in your hand if you are really concerned about the environment,” CJI Gavai said, adjourning the matter for three weeks, by which time the Centre and the states are expected to submit their action plans.