Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of News Item titled “CSE report finds dangerous increase in ozone pollution across urban India” appearing in Down to Earth dated 06.08.2024. The Principal Bench of the NGT heard the matter on March 21, 2025.

In the original application, registered suo motu, the tribunal considered the issue of rising ground level ozone pollution across India in major cities, posing serious health threat, particularly to those with respiratory problems.

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The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in its report, January 20, 2025 stated that the "data of ozone at 178 monitoring stations during the year 2023 reveals that 1-hourly exceedance (>5%) of ozone is reported only at 01 stations each in Delhi-NCR & Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and 8-hourly exceedance (>5%) of ozone is observed at 32 monitoring stations at Delhi-NCR (15), Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR)(10), Jaipur (5) and Pune (2)". Delhi-NCR and Mumbai Metropolitan Regions reported higher exceedances of ozone concentration compared to other regions, CPCB said.

The bench of Justice Prakash Shrivastava, Chairperson, NGT and Justice Sudhir Agarwal said that CPCB report reflected that excess of ozone was noticed in the monitoring stations at various cities. "However, CPCB needs to disclose matching the observed values with NAAQS particularly with reference to exceedance criteria adopted for more than 5% against exceedance of 2%," the order said. Response from MoEF&CC is awaited. The Ministry has sought time to file the reply.

The next date of hearing is July 24, 2025.