Schools don’t need nod to be loud in edu activities: HC

Schools don’t need nod to be loud in edu activities: HC

The Bombay high court on Friday clarified that though the area within a 100m periphery of schools, hospitals, shrines and courts is designated as a silence zone, these institutions themselves cannot be notified as silence zones. Striking down a decision of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) declaring Raja Shivaji Vidyasankul at Dadar as a silence zone, the HC said the school does not require prior permission from police and local planning authority for school-related activities. A division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice NM Jamdar clarified that the school will be required to obtain prior permission for any commercial activity carried out on its campus. The clarification was given during the hearing of a petition filed by city-based Indian Education Society, which administers 65 schools across Maharashtra and four colleges in the city. The institution had approached the HC challenging the corporation’s decision to declare one of their schools, Raja Shivaji Vidyasankul at Dadar, as a silence zone. The court also directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to clarify its stand on impracticability of minimum standards for residential and silence zones. The court has given the MoEF time up to June 22 for responding to the observation. Earlier, the court had issued notice to MoEF after finding considerable substance in contentions raised by the petitioner’s counsel. He had pointed out that the noise standards for ambient air set out by the Central Pollution Control Bo ard (CPCB) were impractical. The CPCB has prescribed 55dB and 45dB as maximum permissible noise level during the day and night, respectively, in residential areas. The corresponding permissible limits for a silence zone are 50dB and 40dB.