- The Bombay High Court warned bureaucrats about worsening air quality in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai
- Salaries of civic commissioners may be withheld for failing to improve air quality as ordered by the court
- The court criticized BMC for delayed anti-pollution actions taken only after court intervention
Rising air pollution will pinch your pocket hard. That was the message the Bombay High Court gave to bureaucrats for air quality turning worse in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.
The high court, in a warning to the chief of the Navi Mumbai municipal body, said it will stop the salaries of bureaucrats if they do not take steps to ensure air quality remains reasonably clean.
The high court made the comments during the hearing of a petition on bad air quality.
It also pulled up the commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country's richest municipal body, over the issue of air quality.
The court's warnings to the civic authorities were triggered by what it called a "belligerent disregard" of its orders to mitigate air pollution, noting they too are breathing the same impure air and not living in some "alien world".
A bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam said they would stop the salaries of the civic commissioners of both Mumbai and Navi Mumbai for not complying with court orders and failing to take measures towards the deteriorating air quality index (AQI).
In 2023, the court had taken suo motu (on its own) cognisance of increasing air pollution and passed directions to civic bodies and other authorities to take steps to mitigate air pollution.
BMC lawyer SU Kamdar told the court that the civic body has issued stop-work notices to several construction sites and that of the 600 sites where air quality monitors were required, the devices have been installed at 400 of them.
The high court, however, did not like the submission and said all these anti-pollution actions had been taken only after the court ordered them.
"What were you doing all these years? We are not here to take stock of the situation every time. It is not the court's job to run the municipal corporation," the high court said.
It sought a detailed report of data on air quality monitoring and directed the BMC to submit daily sensor data for three months prior to November 2025.
"We want the numbers. That will tell the true story," the high court said.
It noted that the affidavits filed by both BMC and the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) lacked ward-wise details; there seems to be no "genuine and sincere" efforts on the part of authorities to deal with the air pollution issue, it added.
