Thread by @barandbench

Kerala High Court is hearing the suo Motu case it initiated in connection with the fire that recently broke out at the Brahmapuram waste dump barandbench.com/news/brahmapur…

Yesterday, the secretary of the Corporation of Kochi had told the court that the fire would be put out completely by the afternoon today.

Read more : barandbench.com/news/brahmapur…

Division bench of Justices SV Bhatti and Basant Balaji are hearing the matter.
Bench tells Advocate General K Gopalakrishna Kurup that each day that the suo Motu PIL is taken up, the bench will recap the proceedings in an order and then the hearing would commence

HC ORDER: in the present writ petition public interest is the only priority of the court. In the process the court will be issuing directions to be carried out by the officers of the state and by the persons entrusted with the functions and duties by environmental laws

HC ORDER: the present sup motu initiative of the court is not to be treated as publicity interest litigation or prosecution interest litigation. Being a constitutional court, this court is the custodian and guardian of the rights of the citizens

HC ORDER: right to clean air, water and pollution free environment are basic human rights. In the incidents happening in immediate past this court has noticed that these rights of the citizens in ernakulam are at stake. Therefore this suo Motu petition is taken up

HC ORDER: we request all stakeholders not to take forward the efforts of the court for any ancillary and incidental purposes. We would like to focus on issues of imminent urgency. We will not be allowing any impleading applications from any quarters

HC ORDER: we have noted from media reports that the personal presence desired by this court of the officers of the state of the chairman of the pollution control board is not being informed to the public in the sense in which these officers have been summoned by this court.

HC ORDER: their presence is being required so that there is no gap between the objects to be achieved in the suo Motu litigation and the directions which have to be carried out by the officers in letter and spirit

HC ORDER: we say that charity begins at home. We change it to say that change begins with us.

HC ORDER: this court for the present thinks that it can enlist the voluntary participation of the legal fraternity to solve the problem

Justice Bhatti : the additional chief secretary is here and usually implementation of policy and everything is upto their domain but there have been issues in providing even basic things to citizens. So we have to step in

AG Kurup reads out the Solid waste management rules 2016

Additional Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan is present online

Justice Bhatti : Ma'am if we read a few of these rules together we might be able to understand the needs and urgency and there may be a need to issue some notifications as precautions

After rule 2 is read out, Justice Bhatti asks if there is any contemplation to issue any notification under the latter part of the rule with regard to solid waste

Justice Bhatti: this is an area where you have the power to issue notification and give strength to local bodies

Justice Bhatti : you can take this up during the high level committee meeting scheduled for tomorrow. As a policy maker you can understand and take a one time corrective measure

Muraleedharan: yes sir, we shall

Muraleedharan : when the rules came into effect in 2016 there was hardly any govt policy for waste management. We have done a lot after that. With regard to non bio it specifies that there has to be house to house collection, separation, recycling etc.

Muraleedharan: our problem has been that it has been one step forward two steps back. All local governments have framed policies and rules but unfortunately the implementation is ....

Justice Bhatti : whatever you are saying is only in letter

Justice Bhatti : the problem is in respect of implementation. We cannot be oblivious to what is so clear in front of our eyes.

Justice Bhatti : simplest thing for this court to do was to order prosecution and wash it's hands off. But we have not done that. We want a concrete solution from you. All local bodies are under you

Justice Bhatti : one thing is clear now in Kerala. You have to take a tough call today. We will give you time to file affidavit for establishing all facilities as are required for solid waste management. By that we mean functional facilities and not just skeletal shells for name.

Justice Bhatti : the first principle in solid waste management is to regulate and control at source generation we want you to issue orders and instructions to make everyone responsible for this aspect. Complete segregation should not be compromised

Justice Bhatti : there should also be a machine mode drive on scattering of wastes whether it is by irresponsible citizens or apartment owners

Justice Bhatti: any officer who is not going forward with our orders, we will direct the district collector to withhold their pay.

Justice Bhatti : in municipality it will be a joint effort between the secretary and the respective sanitization officers

Justice Bhatti: We did this kind of court order in three districts in Andhra Pradesh and it was fully successful. We will be periodically monitoring the long term and short term measures. I am not setting any utopian goals

Justice Bhatti : we just expect to get everyone on board

Justice Bhatti: this is going to be the effort in the entire state of Kerala. Then we will see what are the further directions we need to issue. We will require certain officers to be present before us online. And one thing is that we don't want any bulky reports.

Muraleedharan: we are totally seized of these rules and i have submitted some bullet points as to what needs to be done by June 6th hopefully as it is environment day. I have received clearance from the minister to place it before the court

Justice Bhatti : i have over 20 years experience with environmental laws. There is always a lot of deflection. That is why I insist on bullet points

Justice Bhatti to the additional chief secretary : please have a relook at this list. We have some different expectations. Please do that before you go to the High level committee meeting tomorrow. Within 24 hrs you have done good work but we expect the best from you.

Bench now speaks to Kochi Corporation Secretary Babu Abdul Khadeer

Khadeer : the fire is fully put out. A small fire reignited last night and that was also put out. In case of any fresh fire, we are fully able to control. There is a team on standby at night

Khadeer : i cannot assure that there won't be any more fires but we are fully prepared for it.

Justice Bhatti : yes there will be fresh fires due to the collateral gases that are there now

Justice Bhatti: yesterday you said that there is not electricity connection at the Brahmapuram facility. How are you having power

Khadeer : we have two generators

Justice Bhatti: thats inacceptable. There should be uninterrupted power. Have you told pollution control board

Justice Bhatti : AG, let them not be handicapped like this. Please ensure that they have regular power supply

AG Kurup : i will speak to the kseb chairman regarding this today itself

#brahmapuram

Justice Bhatti goes through a report of the secretary

Justice Bhatti: in our next hearing please place before us the computer data generated on the weight of waste generated and brought there each day

#brahmapuram

Justice Bhatti: what about malls and large establishments waste management

Khadeer : there are 498 institutions but only 106 have adopted the appropriate practice

Justice Bhatti: issue notice to the rest in two days. They can't make money from citizens and then do this

Justice Bhatti : this is a two pronged approach. what do you want to do at source? And then what do you want to do at the handling facility

Khadeer shows the relevant para in his report

Justice Balaji: where does the mix-up of waste happen ? At brahmapuram?

Khadeer: the issue is due to the marshy land at brahmapuram ... It has a capacity of 250 tonnes per day

Standing counsel of Pollution control board submits that the corporation does not have consent for treatment of waste

Justice Bhatti: anyway for solid waste they cannot treat only for hazardous wastes and such other can they treat

Justice Bhatti: i attended an event in 2016 in chennai which highlighted a very economical waste management program . I will try to get the details and share with you

Khadeer : we are proposing to establish a new composting plant. As per other corporation secretaries who have done this, it can be done by 90 days. I have put 180 days estimate only to take into account upcoming monsoon

Justice Bhatti: why don't we take some input from other cities also. Cochin is a smart City so is Indore. What is the situation there?

Khadeer : it is 100% source segregated.

Justice Bhatti: which is different in kochi. We should make kochi the best

Justice Bhatti: day after tomorrow please tell us the shortest span within which you can do this

Justice Bhatti: since last Thursday you haven't been collecting waste in kochi. When can you pick it up?

Khadeer : we can pick it up tomorrow itself

Khadeer : henceforth fwe will not be transporting any plastic waste collected from April 1 at least to brahmapuram

Justice Bhatti: give a notification with plastic collection schedule. Otherwise it will become an unmanageable problem.

Ernakulam district collector Renu Raj is personally present in Court.

She recaps the work undertaken by the district administration with assistance of Navy, Airforce and under the Disaster Management authorities.

Raj : we have found out from experts that the fire at brahmapuram is a smoldering fire where there is smoke and fire under piles. They have to be physically excavated and water be injected.

Justice Bhatti: we have not asked you to be here for this. You know the fire happened on Thursday and breathing was so difficult by Saturday. Have you ordered ambient air quality monitoring ?

Raj : yes sir , we are monitoring from 4 stations

Justice Bhatti: that's all? Ayyo! For a big city like this, that is completely inadequate. For the hearing on day after tomorrow, bring a proposal for more facilities. Identify and plan where to put the facilities

Justice Bhatti: what ameliorating efforts have you taken? What you are saying are control measures. There is a difference. If you have issued press releases, please submit them.

Raj takes the bench through the instructions issued to different groups of people

Raj : these were issued on the basis of suggestions from medical doctors and experts at a meeting convened by the State Health Minister

Raj says that 3 days before the fire broke out, a team that inspected brahmapuram had found some inadequacies which it had informed to the corporation of Kochi

Justice Bhatti: can the fire be attributed to that?

Raj reads from direction given re installing fire hydrants

Justice Bhatti: i will say that as district collector you should have been more present before the public to establish confidence. Under the act you have onerous responsibility and if your team was active enough, the situation would not have gone on for this long.

Justice Bhatti: please file a report by Friday on the actions you intend to take now

Bench now speaks to Pradeep Kumar who is the chairperson of the State Pollution Control Board (PCB)

Justice Bhatti: we request you to tell us the short medium and long term steps that the corporation needs to take now

Kumar speaks of the vacancy of officers in PCB. He says that recruitment is going on but in 16 labs across the state, there are only 4 officers. 84 environment engineers posts are lying vacant

Justice Bhatti: we understand the issue. You need sufficient staff to carry out what we expect you to do in supervising the steps taken by local bodies. Put it on record on Friday

AG informs court that Renu Raj has been transferred and new District collector will be joining

Justice Bhatti: let the incumbent come once personally but after he can join online

Raj : i will brief the incumbent.

Khadeer tells the court that unlike all other states, in Kerala, Municipal corporation secretary can only put recommendations before Councillors and the Mayor

HC ORDER: AG has brought to our notice that a High Level Conference is being convened by the Chief Minister of State of Kerala today at 5pm

HC ORDER: officers present in court have stated in unison that there is an obligation on the part of the state govt , local bodies, dist admin, and also the PCB to take efficacious measures for addressing the problem which is taken up this court as suo Motu writ petition

HC ORDER: as has been suggested by AG we give time till day after tomorrow to the additional chief secretary to place on record on all the points which are finalised by the high level conference with definite timelines for performance

HC ORDER: we direct the secretary through our present order to issue orders to all establishments that come under solid waste management which have not put in place the equipment required for handling bulk solid waste

HC ORDER: we direct corporation kochi Secretary to place before the court report on improving collection, handling and disposal of solid waste management within its jurisdiction

HC ORDER: after receiving this proposal we will be incorporating the same in our next order

HC ORDER: we take note of the presence of the district collector and her efforts from Thursday until today. The only shortfall we notice is that her efforts did not receive the attention it needed. The incumbent collector shall be present on March 10

HC ORDER: Chairman of PCB drew our attention to omissions and commissions at Brahmapuram plant. The chairman has suggested measures to be implemented by the corporation

HC ORDER : this court is conscious of the penal provisions under all three enactments. This suo Motu case is not taken up for penalising but only to improve the future and ensure complete implementation of the rules

HC ORDER: one of the reasons stated by Corporation for not being able to immediately contain the fire is that it was unable to immediately use fire hydrants at the site since the plant is being run without a dedicated power supply line

HC ORDER: the deputy chief engineer of KSEB Ernakulam is directed to provide a temporary power supply line to the site and connect the same within four hours from 4pm

Standing counsel of KSEB asks for more time

Justice Bhatti: then we will ask you to go and stay near the Brahmapuram plant. You start inhaling that

A lawyer present in court tells the bench that his son studies in a school that is 500m away from the Brahmapuram plant. He says that today there was no order from the district collector granting a holiday because of which the school functioned and students went to school

Lawyer : the pollution was so unbearable and they had to send the students back home. Tomorrow also, holiday has not been declared

Justice Bhatti: collector, ask your deputy to immediately go there and take action by 6pm. Circulate information on all media.