The court’s reversal comes months after another bench led by Justice Abhay S Oka reaffirmed Delhi’s firecracker ban — extended to NCR states in April.
The Supreme Court on Friday said it will allow the sale and bursting of firecrackers in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) for five days during Diwali, marking what could be the Capital’s first festival season with legal fireworks in years despite concerns from environmental experts and amicus curiae about enforcement gaps.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai and justice K Vinod Chandran reserved its order after the Union government proposed firecrackers be allowed under a tightly regulated framework permitting only “green firecrackers” approved by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).
But, the bench stated: “For the time being, we will allow it during the five days of Diwali on a trial basis…However, we will confine it to certain time limits”.
The remark came after the Centre, represented by solicitor General Tushar Mehta, submitted a detailed enforcement plan restricting sales to licensed traders and barring online platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon from facilitating firecracker sales in Delhi-NCR. Traditional crackers would remain banned, the government promised, even as it sought that the relaxation be for all festivals.
The government proposed strict time windows: 8pm to 10pm on Diwali and major festivals, 11.55pm to 12.30am on New Year’s Eve, and one-hour slots morning and evening for Gurpurab. Firecrackers could also be used for weddings and personal occasions, it submitted.
During the hearing, Mehta requested the court relax Diwali timings, arguing children should not be restricted to two hours of celebration. “It is a matter of a few days on Diwali. Let children celebrate Diwali with fervour,” the solicitor general said.
Experts have repeatedly raised alarm over such a move, citing the two-year period between 2018 and 2020 when a similar policy for green firecrackers yielded no reduction in air pollution levels, and argued that on the ground, it was virtually impossible to distinguish between such products and conventional firecrackers. And children and old people are the worst sufferers of air pollution. While weather and wind conditions, and farm waste burning, mostly in Punjab, are responsible for the rise in air pollution in the region at this time of the year, the use of fireworks — even green crackers are polluting, although by around a third less than normal crackers — causes a temporary spike in and around Diwali.
Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at think-tank Envirocatalysts said bursting of green firecrackers could potentially set back by 10 years the fight against air in Delhi.
“We need to control all sources of pollution at the source, including episodic events such as firecracker bursting — which lead to a spike in air pollution,” said Dahiya, stating if meteorological conditions were unfavourable, the impact can linger for days. “For long-term gains, we also need to control stubble burning as well as perennial sources such as transport emissions, power generation, industries, waste and construction sector,” he added.
Senior advocate Uttara Babbar, assisting the court as amicus curiae, warned the government’s enforcement plan amounted to “lip service,” noting that the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) has no testing facilities in Delhi to verify products in the market.
