Referring to the details, of slow pace of work done by the state government agencies, in the P Ram Committee report, the court observed that “it appears that the local administration as well as various agencies of the state involved in clearing Buddha Nallah are not taking prompt action. A good exercise has been done by P Ram Committee bar chart showing target, percentage of work and task assigned to each of agencies. It appears that the Deputy Commissioner, Municipal Commissioner, Punjab Pollution Control Board have not put their houses in order”.

It may be recalled that the High Court had warned the Deputy Commissioner and Municipal Corporation (MC), Ludhiana, on October 19 after the P Ram Committee status report had highlighted that the two were not cooperating with the Committee.

The Committee has pointed out that solid waste was still being dumped into the nallah especially at the bridge crossings and no enforcement mechanism could be seen in place. It also mentions that the DC has not been filing the action taken report to it.

The Chief Justice observed that any laxity on the part of DC, Ludhiana, or Municipal Commissioner in attending the P Ram Committee meetings would constrain it to issue necessary directions for taking action against the two officers.