The Supreme Court on Friday heard a plea from a petitioner seeking enhancement of India’s earthquake preparedness measures. The petitioner who appeared in person before the apex court requested a bench of justices to issue guidelines for the centre to enhance India’s earthquake preparedness measures.
The petitioner’s concerns stemmed from the latest earthquake zonation map of India released by the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) which reported that 75 per cent of the Indian population lives on land that is highly susceptible to earthquakes.
Appearing before justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, the petitioner told the court that earlier it was considered that only Delhi was in the high seismic zone, but recently it was concluded that 75 percent of the Indian population falls under it.
Supreme Court’s response
Responding to the petitioner’s request, Justices at the supreme court asked him whether they should relocate everyone to the moon to solve the problem. It becomes important to note here that seismic studies and early warning mechanisms can only forecast potential earthquakes. It is not necessary or guaranteed for all forecasted earthquakes to occur.
Additionally these reports and scientific systems can not produce specific and accurate predictions of date, time, location, magnitude of any future earthquake.
“So we should relocate everyone to the moon or where?” the bench asked on Friday while dismissing a petition which said 75 per cent of India’s population is in a high seismic zone and sought directions to minimise damage that will be caused by future earthquakes in India.
The petitioner tried to underscore the significance of his plea by making a comparison with Japan to which the bench responded by saying that the petitioner would have to first bring volcanoes in India to make an accurate geological comparison with Japan.
SC issues clarification on the distribution of responsibilities
When the petitioner attempted to argue for his case by saying that based on the updated natural disasters map the authorities should make arrangements to minimise damage in case an earthquake strikes, the court told him that the mandate for this lies within the government’s ambit.
“These are all policy matters for the government to take care (of).That is for the government to take care (of); this court cannot do it. Dismissed,” the bench concluded.