NEW DELHI: Residents of every city in India can burst green crackers on Diwali if the ambient air quality remained better than the “poor” category, the Supreme Court said on Monday as it set aside a Calcutta high court order imposing a blanket ban on bursting of crackers and exceeded the previous SC order restraining use of hazardous fireworks that mostly use barium salts.
At a special sitting during the Diwali break, a bench of Justices A M Khanwlikar and Ajay Rastogi said, “There cannot be a complete ban (on bursting of crackers). The Supreme Court as well as National Green Tribunal have in numerous orders clarified which crackers can be burst if the ambient air quality remained better than the poor level.”

Appearing for the PIL petitioner in the SC, Arjun Gopal, and the petitioner before the HC, Roshni Ali, advocates Gopal Shankaranarayanan and Rachit Lakhmani argued that the SC had noted in its October 29 order that majority of cracker manufacturers have labelled their products as green with fake QR codes and that the CBI found them to have used banned barium salts in manufacturing the polluting crackers.
They said the HC had rightly imposed a blanket ban on bursting of crackers as the festivities in Kolkata was not confined to Diwali only and continued for a month owing to proximate festivals such as Kali Puja, Chhatt, Govardhan Puja and Christmas.