“You people take other’s lives so formally, as if it is a file on your desk,” National Green Tribunal (NGT) chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar told the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, today. The CMO drew the chairperson’s ire when he claimed that patients’ documents showed there were no incidents of water-borne diseases in the district’s villages.

The NGT was hearing the Doaba Paryavaran Samiti (DPS) vs State of UP case pertaining to heavy metal poisoning in the groundwater of villages along the Hindon river in six districts — Saharanpur, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut and Ghaziabad — of UP. Newslaundry had written about the plight of the affected people in Baghpat.

Gaurav Bansal, the counsel for DPS, told the Tribunal that clean drinking water was not being supplied to the villages in Baghpat despite repeated NGT orders. UP Jal Nigam (UPJN) managing director, Prem Assudani, replied that supply has commenced in six of 55 villages that need it.

NGT also directed UPJN to conduct a study on the quality of the groundwater and submit it in the next hearing on October 21. Interestingly, UPJN has submitted a report on groundwater quality in the six districts to the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, but not to NGT.