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The Allahabad High Court has directed the District Magistrate of Mathura, Uttar Pradesh to file an affidavit indicating the latest position of the river Yamuna and the measures taken to curtail the pollution and contamination in the river. 

The bench of Justice Pritinker Diwaker and Justice Ashutosh Srivastava passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation which was instituted on the basis of a letter written by one Gopeshwar Nath Chaturvedi in the year 1998.

Chaturvedi, in his letter, had pointed out the threat from pollution and contamination caused by the dumping of a large amount of untreated industrial and domestic waste into the river.

The litigation was pursued and certain affidavits had also been filed by different authorities, however, the bench noted that through these affidavits, the recent position is not reflected.

Therefore, in the facts and circumstances of the case, Court directed the District Magistrate to file a fresh affidavit indicating the latest position of the river.

Court also directed the Registrar (Civil) to supply a copy of all the related documents to the State Counsel and posted the matter on May 16, 2022, for further hearing. 

In January 2021 the Supreme Court had registered a suo moto case while hearing the petition related to increased ammonia levels in the Yamuna due to the discharge of pollutants.

The top court had said, “Open surface water resources including rivers are lifeline of human civilization. In olden days, almost all the human settlements were at the bank of some river as it provided for an array of utilities such as portable water, irrigation, food, livelihood, transportation, etc. Every civilization including ours, has shown great amount of gratitude to these life creating resources.”

Case Title: Gopeshwar Nath Chaturvedi v. State of U.P. and Others