Modi ji has given us enough 'acche din', we don't want more, says fire cracker traders

India

oi-Shreya

By Shreya

The Supreme Court on October 13 rejected the review petition submitted by the fire cracker traders seeking to relax the ban on sale of fire crackers in the capital at least for a day before Diwali. This decision of the Top Court was of course not welcomed by the fire cracker traders and they even called it an attempt to attack Hindu festivals.

The Top Court in its order on October 9 had banned the sale of fire crackers in Delhi and the National Capital religion until October 31 in a move to curb the pollution in the city.

The Apex Court in its judgment observed, "We are of the view that the order suspending the licences should be given one chance to test itself in order to find out as to whether there would be positive effect of this suspension, particularly during Diwali period. Insofar as adverse effects of burning of crackers during Diwali are concerned, those have been witnessed year after year. The air quality deteriorates abysmally and alarmingly and the city chokes thereby. It leads to closing the schools and the authorities are compelled to take various measures on emergent basis, when faced with "health emergency" situation.

This very situation had occurred on the very next morning after Diwali in the year 2016.

It resulted in passing the order dated November 11, 2016. This order prevailed during the year but the impact and effect of this order remains to be tested on Diwali days. Going by these considerations, we are of the opinion that the judgment dated September 12, 2017 passed by this Court should be made effective only from November 01, 2017. To put it clearly, though we are not tweaking with the various directions contained in the Orders dated September 12, 2017, the effect of that Order would not be given during this Diwali and, therefore, we are making it effective only from November 01, 2017. We are conscious of the fact that after the said order was passed, the police may have issued temporary licences. Accordingly, those are suspended forthwith so that there is no further sale of the crackers in Delhi and NCR. Further orders in this behalf can be passed on assessing the situation that would emerge after this Diwali season. "

Oneindia visited Sadarbazar Patakha Market in New Delhi to get a sense of what the traders have to say regarding the SC judgment. What was given to understand is the fact that none of the traders were happy about the decision, and there question was, "Why did Supreme Court have to do this just a few days before Diwali? Why did you give us a licence in the first place?"

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Chabda, a fire cracker trader spoke to Oneindia and said, "We never expected to be treated in this way by the Supreme Court. This decision clearly seems very insensitive. We were given our licence, we had invested money in making and buying fire crackers and now all of a sudden the police come and shut our shops. And now we can't even open our shops because there are crackers inside. The decision of the court has made this Diwala close to nothing for us and our kids,"

Devender Singh, another trader told us that his brother even tried to commit suicide because of the loss suffered after the SC ban on fire crackers in the capital. he said, "They have asked us not to burn crackers, or sale them. These diwali many of us will have to burn ourselves due to the loss we have incurred."

Talking about pollution, Chabda said, "Fire crackers is not the only factor contributing to the pollution in the capital. Can you control pollution from vehicles and crop burning in Haryana? Do you think just banning fire cracker would help? It would not, it would only kill people like us and take away the little joys from our children."

There are many traders who felt the same way and said that the SC's decision has made them surffer huge loss and they feel that nobody tried to understand their situation.

Oneindia also spoke to the people at Sadarbazar, who had come for diwali shopping and they seemed to be equally displeased with the SC judgment. They said that this diwali would be have the same value to them because of the ban of fire crackers, and hence this diwali to fail to be as good as the previous ones.

The Delhi Government has also submitted a draft report to NGT on climate change.

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