July 3, 2018:

On Tuesday, Supreme Court took note of problem of pollution in Vaishno Devi Shrine in Jammu and surrounding areas and made it clear that Jammu and Kashmir Government and the shrine board would have to "protect and preserve" both.

Apex Court Bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta asked them to protect the pony and mule owners, who are operating there for a long time ferrying devotees to and from the shrine, and look into issues of their rehabilitation on "humanitarian grounds".

SC Bench, after perusing some recent pictures of waste dumped in Banganga River near the shrine, observed that if the photographs were true, then there were lot of problems which needed to be looked into.

Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh and Advocate Shoeb Alam, appearing on behalf of State of Jammu and Kashmir submitted that the plan for rehabilitation of pony and mule owners was to go before the sub-committee of the Cabinet, but as of now, there was no government in the state which is under Governor's Rule.

ASG Singh further submitted that National Green Tribunal (NGT) was looking into some of the aspects relating to Shrine and has passed several orders.

Lawyers for Jammu and Kashmir stated that since the Supreme Court was seized of the matter, the NGT should not proceed with the case pending there.

Counsel for activist Gauri Maulekhi, who had filed a plea in the NGT seeking removal of horses and mules from the path to the shrine, placed before the bench the recent pictures of Banganga river and said waste was being dumped into the river causing environmental degradation.

"Large amount of dumps are allowed to flow into Banganga, a holy river. There is no improvement in the situation," the counsel said, adding, "instead of solving the problem, the shrine board is trying to wash off their hands as they are making money".

Lawyer also referred to 'Glanders' disease' among horses and mules and said it spread to humans also. Glanders is an infection caused by bacterium Burkholderia mallei caused by ingestion of contaminated feed or water. It creates nodular lesions in lungs and ulcers in respiratory tract and the acute cases lead to fever, coughing and septicaemia.

Source PTI

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