Evaluate the role of judicial oversight in shaping air-quality governance in Delhi-NCR.

Delhi-NCR's air-quality governance has been shaped as much in court as in the legislature. Through the long-running M.C. Mehta v. Union of India litigation, the Supreme Court has read clean air into Article 21 and supervised the executive continuously. It has done well at building institutions but less well at securing lasting outcomes.

Positive role: Courts as catalyst

• Institution-building: court-driven proceedings shaped EPCA (1998). EPCA was later dissolved for the statutory CAQM, whose directions override States, CPCB and State PCBs [1].
• Structural mandates: the Court-ordered shift of Delhi's public transport to CNG forced a change the executive had deferred.
• Real-time supervision: the Court observed that GRAP Stage IV would continue even if AQI fell below 450, putting public health above automatic triggers [2].
• Ratcheting standards: under sustained scrutiny, CAQM moved curbs to earlier stages in Dec 2024 and Nov 2025 [2][3].

Limitations: Oversight without outcomes

• Episodic and reactive: hearings peak with winter smog, and GRAP is a short-term emergency tool against weather-driven spikes [5].
• Enforcement gap: orders rely on State machinery. CAQM itself had to demand enforcement "in true letter and spirit" with daily reporting [4]. Stage I's 27 actions include year-round rules such as PUC checks [6].
• Separation of powers: court-supervised curbs such as hybrid classes [2] push into executive territory. Construction bans and 50% office attendance hit daily-wage workers hardest [3].
• Airshed blind spot: litigation centres on the NCR, while the smog covers the whole Indo-Gangetic Plain [5].

Verdict Judicial oversight has been a necessary corrective against executive inertia. It cannot replace administrative capacity, though: it is a pacemaker, not the heart.

In sum, the judiciary has built Delhi-NCR's clean-air architecture but cannot run it. Courts should move from micro-management to outcome-monitoring. That means time-bound NCAP targets, published post-episode compliance reports from CAQM, and an airshed compact with Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. This would turn Article 21's promise into lasting clean air and advance SDG 11.6.