Lashing out at the authorities for failing to curb severe air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region, the Supreme Court Wednesday said it is a question of life and death of crores of people here but it is "very unfortunate" that they are not bothered about poor people and letting them die.
"Can you permit people to die like this due to pollution? Can you permit the country to go back by 100 years," observed a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra while directing the governments of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to provide support of Rs 100/quintal within 7 days to small and marginal farmers who have not burned the stubble -- a major source of air pollution.
"We have to make government responsible for this," the bench said and asked, "Why can't government machinery stop stubble burning?"