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In an affidavit before the Allahabad High Court, the U.P. Pollution Control Board has submitted that out of total 33 Nalas (sewage lines) in Lucknow, through 19 Nalas untreated water is being directly discharged into the river Gomti.

The division bench of Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Jaspreet Singh was hearing a Public Interest Litigation pertaining to the issue of untreated sewage being discharged directly into river Gomti. The instant affidavit was filed in this matter which is pending since year 2003.

Interestingly, the petitioner also submitted before the Court today that allegedly 2200 crore rupees have been spent on river Gomti for various purposes till now, still, its water impurity level hasn’t improved a bit.

When the Bench enquired regarding the same from the counsel for U.P. Pollution Control Board, he submitted that a new status report was prepared after the said affidavit which had been filed by the Board but is hasn’t come on record for some reason.

The bench further asked whether the Board has taken any stringent steps against the faulty authorities who are responsible for preventing such activities. As the Board tried to look the other way, the bench said,

“Despite existing stringent laws for pollution control, if the U.P. Pollution Control Board is not willing to prosecute the culprits, it will simply mean that Board itself is hand in gloves with them.”

Furthermore, the Nagar Nigam, Lucknow also informed the court that during the pendency of the matter, new Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) have been constructed which are equipped with latest technologies. However, the petitioner objected to this averment stating,

“What’s the use for these new STPs with latest technologies if the Nalas are not tapped to the plant. The Nigam is tapping only new Nalas into the plant however old ones remain untapped. This will not resolve the issue.”

Thereafter, taking note of the fact that multiple papers of were not available on the paper books, the Court directed that the affidavits and other papers filed in the case in hand shall be put datewise, the entire paper book be page marked and indexed from the top.

Court also directed the registry to trace out Pollution Control Board’s latest affidavit and place it on record.

Case Title: - Sewage Treatment Plant, Lucknow v. State of U.P.