Daily Court Digest: Major environment orders (March 10, 2025)
Do tree census in Taj Trapezium Zone: SC to Forest Research Institute
The Supreme Court bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh stated that the purpose of the 1976 Act is to safeguard trees rather than promote their cutting, as they issued an order for a tree census in the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ), Agra, Uttar Pradesh. "Sections 4 and 5 of the 1976 Act provide for grant of permission to fell or remove the trees. If trees are felled without permission, there are penal provisions starting from Section 10 onwards. The penal provisions cannot be implemented unless the data of existing trees are available. The data can be made available only if there is a proper tree census carried out," SC said March 5, 2025.
Without tree census, there cannot be any effective implementation of the provisions of the 1976 Act, the apex court pointed out.
SC thus instructed the TTZ Authority to designate the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehradun as the responsible entity for conducting a tree census of all the current trees within the TTZ area.
The bench made it clear that all the local authorities, the state government and the TTZ Authority should render every possible cooperation to the FRI while carrying out the tree census. The affidavit by the FRI should be filed by the end of March 2025.
Bio-mining silt in Singhola landfill site
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is undertaking concerted efforts by actively working on bio-mining silt at the Singhola landfill site to address environmental concerns associated with it. This was stated in the report filed by MCD March 7, 2025 in compliance with the NGT order, November 19, 2024.
The MCD report mentioned that after the slide / collapse of secured landfill facility (SLF) at Ghazipur in September 2017, a piece of land measuring 7.2 acres was allotted on a temporary basis for two years in April 2018 at Singhola Khampur village for diverting / disposing of the drain silt by DDA to the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
By July 2022, approximately 900,000 tonnes of silt had accumulated at the site. The silt was deposited by the Shahdara North and Shahdara South zones of MCD.
In addition, the PWD and the Irrigation and Flood Control Department of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi also deposited drain silt at the site. Further dumping would have caused the risk of sliding / slipping of silt towards adjoining area, thus dumping of silt was stopped at the Singhola site in July 2022.
MCD awarded the work of bio-mining and disposal of processed material on November 1, 2024 for 900,000 tonnes at the site. Till date around 200,000 tonnes have been bio-mined and disposed of from site and the work is expected to be completed by August 2025.
In Bawana, an engineered sanitary landfill has been developed on around 35 acres of land. The total intake of municipal solid waste at this facility is 2,300 tonnes per day (TPD), out of which around 350-400 TPD is disposed of in the sanitary landfill as process rejects and waste-to-energy ash.
Illegal dumping of solid waste from Sikkim
Legacy waste bio-mined from a municipal solid waste landfill in Martam in Gangtok district, Sikkim was unlawfully disposed of in Farabari, West Bengal. This information was disclosed in a report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on March 6, 2025. The waste was being transported for co-processing at Dew Resource Management in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
CPCB asked the Sikkim Pollution Control Board to take necessary action, monitor and ensure compliance of the provisions of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules. The Sikkim Pollution Control Board has been asked to come up with time targeted action plan focusing development of adequate infrastructure for solid waste management.
There is no common biomedical waste treatment facility operational in the state of Sikkim for treatment and facility. However, 277 captive treatment facilities are being operated by healthcare facilities, as authorised by the Sikkim State Pollution Control Board for treatment and disposal of biomedical waste. These captive treatment facilities include incineration, autoclave and deep burials.
The Sikkim Pollution Control Board has submitted the annual report on implementation of solid waste management for financial year 2023-2024 under SWM Rules, 2016. As per the annual report, Sikkim generates 69.68 tonnes per day of solid waste. While all of this is collected, 52.5 per cent (36.57 TPD) is processed / treated and 47.5 per cent (33.11 TPD) is landfilled.