India's Supreme Court, in a session held on Monday, called on the public to consider marking Diwali through lamp-lighting traditions rather than fireworks, noting that the festival's observance carries implications for community health alongside its customary religious significance. The court observed that compulsory judicial directives tend to be experienced as coercive, and that a more durable path forward involves building public awareness and encouraging people to adopt cleaner practices voluntarily.
Three justices — Chief Justice Surya Kant alongside Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana — took up the case when it came before the bench for consideration. The Chief Justice put forward the view that public education offered the most constructive path forward, informing people about which practices carry greater health risks and which carry fewer, and fostering a cultural shift toward lamp-lighting traditions. Justice Bagchi pressed for clarity on what religious grounding, if any, underpins the act of setting off firecrackers. Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, serving as amicus curiae to the bench, drew the court's attention to documented health concerns tied to air pollution.
Addressing arguments that tied firecracker use to religious observance, Singh maintained that deities themselves would be distressed to learn that children were falling ill in their honour. The court noted it had no intention of undermining faith-based traditions, while also underlining that public awareness of fireworks-related risks and voluntary adoption of safer alternatives remained a priority, adding through direct address that communities themselves were best placed to take that step forward.
The Chief Justice remarked that any such process rests on a weighing of competing considerations. The Chief Justice directed Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati that some material could be placed in the public domain. A public appeal for restrained, time-specific use of firecrackers was identified as an option worth pursuing, with the stated aim of keeping the surrounding environment free from both auditory disturbance and airborne contaminants.
Regulators could also oversee which types of firecrackers are permitted for sale, with products deemed to pose elevated health or safety risks subject to distribution limits. Bhati noted that the green-cracker framework had already been put in place under the court's ruling in the Arjun Gopal case, and that a separate bench of the apex court was hearing a related matter covering the country as a whole. For Delhi specifically, he explained, a total ban had previously been in place, which the court had adjusted the previous year to permit firecracker sales across three days and use across two days, with each use window limited to three hours at designated times.
Counsel drew on the previous year's court ruling to argue that firecrackers could only be sold within the specific categories approved by NEERI — a framework described as considerably stricter than the one applied in the Arjun Gopal matter. The Chief Justice noted that any restrictive direction needed to remain workable and enforceable before being issued, adding that such orders tend to be perceived by the public as coercive rather than regulatory, a reaction he described as a natural human response.
Relying on verifiable data and observable facts was identified in proceedings as one defensible approach to navigating the question. The Chief Justice indicated there was adequate opportunity to appeal to the public, urging people to celebrate as they wished while adhering to two or three specific guidelines and confining festivities to designated hours.
The court stated that health and pollution stand as its foremost considerations, while also raising questions about the cumulative environmental toll that could result from a large volume of firecrackers being set off within a compressed timeframe. The court-appointed amicus raised concerns about public health across vulnerable populations — elderly residents, children, and those with chronic illness — and conveyed to the bench that time-bound restrictions sound workable in legal arguments but break down in practice, given that police cannot maintain a constant presence on every street. The amicus further recommended that the matter be referred to the Commission for Air Quality Management, the statutory body already holding the relevant data and authority.
Proceedings initiated by the court on its own motion — addressing air quality concerns across the National Capital Region, including the burning of crop residue, use of firecrackers, and disposal of solid waste — were under way before the bench. Stubble burning controls ahead of the approaching pollution window were among the topics taken up during the session.
Pointing to the economic potential in agricultural waste, the court noted that crop residue had taken on monetary worth and held the capacity to generate income for farming communities, calling for a trading ecosystem around it to be established. Bhati told the bench that a regulatory structure covering both in-situ and ex-situ approaches to crop residue management was already in place. She indicated that a detailed affidavit laying out the steps taken to address the matter would be submitted by the Centre.
Following that exchange, Bhati told the court that a revised status report would be filed covering three areas: actions already taken, preventive measures put in place, and a forward-looking strategy for addressing air pollution. A follow-up hearing in the matter is set for October 15.
