A peculiar situation faced the National Green Tribunal today when Uttarakhand government officials, attending day-to-day hearing on cleaning of river Ganga for almost a week, urged it to allow them to go home as they did not have any clothes or money left.
The green panel, however, countered them saying "can't your state government bear your cost of stay? You all have been called as your counsel have been not been able to answer the queries of the tribunal."
The NGT's remarks came when a counsel for Uttarakhand Pey Jal Nigam urged a bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar, said on behalf of the officials "we don't have clothes and money left with us. Kindly allow us to go home. We have been appearing before the tribunal for the past 4-5 days."
The bench further said the tribunal can allow them to go home "but who will then answer the questions" as the counsels were unable to satisfy the bench on several issues pertaining to the cleansing of river Ganga.
"We are not concerned about your face but we are indeed concerned about the substance of the case," the bench said adding that it does not want the officials to crowd the court.
It said the matter has been pending for past six months and the "tribunal does not wish to set a record in disposing the matter."
"When we ask any question, your counsels turn their back. This can't be done. It is a serious issue and tribunal needs answer from the parties concerned for its verdict," the bench said.
The officials from Uttarakhand Pollution Control Board, Uttarakhand Pey Jal Nigam, Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan and other departments have been appearing before the court since last week in the daily hearings.
The bench posted the matter for further hearing tomorrow and asked the counsels to come prepared with every details of Sewage Treatment Plants and affluent discharged in river Ganga.
The tribunal had yesterday said it will pass an order for segment-1 of Phase-1 (from Gaumukh to Haridwar) of clean Ganga project.
The panel had came out with an idea of evolving a 500 metre buffer zone on the banks of river Ganga like in Western countries to ban constructions for protecting it from pollution.
