Bombay High Court Is Right on Air Pollution, MPCB and MMRDA Must Also Be Held Accountable
The Bombay High Court’s decision to openly question the failure of civic authorities to control air pollution, and its warning that salaries of top municipal commissioners could be stopped, deserves clear appreciation. In a system where air pollution has been normalised as a seasonal inconvenience rather than treated as a public health emergency, judicial intervention was not just justified, it was necessary. By signalling personal accountability, the court has cut through years of bureaucratic deflection and reminded authorities that clean air is not optional governance.
The court’s intervention stands out because executive action has repeatedly failed. Advisory after advisory has been issued, committees have been formed, and action plans have been announced, yet air quality across Mumbai and its surrounding urban regions continues to deteriorate. The High Court stepped in precisely because institutional inertia had become routine. That deserves recognition, not resistance.
However, accountability for air pollution cannot logically or legally stop with municipal commissioners alone. Bodies like BMC and NMMC operate at the last mile. They manage road dust, issue local notices, and conduct site inspections. Their role is important, but it is also limited. They do not decide which projects get approved, how many construction sites operate simultaneously, or whether polluting units retain their legal permissions during severe pollution episodes.
This is where the role of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board becomes impossible to ignore. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board is the primary statutory authority under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act. It has the power to grant, suspend, and revoke consents to operate. It has the authority to shut down polluting units, impose penalties, and enforce emission standards. If large construction projects, ready-mix concrete plants, and industrial activities continue operating uninterrupted even when air quality slips into unhealthy or severe categories, that is not a municipal failure alone. It is a regulatory failure.
Repeatedly, pollution control enforcement has been reactive rather than preventive. Action is often visible only after court interventions or media outrage. If air quality monitoring data does not translate into enforcement decisions, then the very purpose of a pollution control board is diluted. Any serious accountability framework must therefore ask why MPCB’s statutory powers are not being exercised proportionately to the scale of the crisis.
Equally critical is the role of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority shapes the physical and developmental future of the Mumbai metropolitan region. Its approvals determine the density, scale, and sequencing of construction and infrastructure projects. When large numbers of projects are cleared without synchronising construction activity with environmental carrying capacity or air quality thresholds, pollution is effectively designed into the system.
Once these approvals are granted, municipal bodies are left managing the consequences. Water sprinkling, debris notices, and local fines become cosmetic responses to a structurally embedded problem. Planning decisions made at the regional level have long-term air quality implications, and insulating planning authorities from accountability while targeting only implementers creates a skewed and ineffective governance response.
The deeper problem is the fragmentation of responsibility without fragmentation of impact. Planning authorities enable projects, pollution control boards regulate them, and municipal bodies manage the fallout. Air pollution, however, does not respect these administrative silos. It accumulates, compounds, and harms citizens regardless of which authority signed which file. Targeting only the final link in this chain may create headlines, but it will not deliver sustained improvement in air quality.
The Bombay High Court has already demonstrated the willingness to go beyond symbolic observations. The next logical step is to widen the accountability lens. This does not require a witch hunt or personal vendetta. It requires institutional scrutiny. Why are consents not suspended during peak pollution periods? Why are construction approvals not aligned with real-time environmental stress? Why is compliance treated as discretionary rather than mandatory?
By extending its scrutiny to MPCB and MMRDA, the High Court would not dilute its message. It would complete it. The court has already shown that it understands the seriousness of the crisis. Now it has the opportunity to ensure that responsibility is fixed where statutory power actually lies.
Clean air will not be achieved by punishing only those at the end of the administrative chain. It will come from holding regulators and planners to the same standards of accountability that the court has rightly begun to demand from municipal authorities. The Bombay High Court has taken the first and hardest step. For the sake of public health and institutional integrity, it must now take the next one too.
