The judicial intervention follows comprehensive site inspections conducted across the river’s protected ecologically sensitive “O-Zone,” specifically targeting vulnerable sections near Mayur Vihar, the DND Flyway, and New Friends Colony. While the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) reported that permanent concrete dairy structures had been successfully dismantled, inspectors documented an abundance of temporary cattle sheds, localized fodder reserves, and scattered heaps of raw animal waste clogging the floodplains. Furthermore, monitoring teams photographed dozens of bovine animals openly grazing on protected seasonal grasslands, indicating that commercial activity has merely adapted rather than ceased.

This enforcement gap has triggered bureaucratic friction among the capital’s overlapping administrative bodies. Legal counsel representing the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the primary land-owning agency, informed the tribunal that multiple demolition and eviction drives have been actively carried out. However, the agency noted that these clear-out operations are routinely rendered futile by non-compliant dairy operators who quickly return to set up makeshift structures underneath city flyovers. In response, the DPCC has formally requested that the DDA install permanent fencing and actively impound any stray livestock found trespassing in the restricted zones.

The NGT’s latest order puts a tight timeline on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), giving its Animal Husbandry Department exactly six weeks to submit an updated action-taken report details-driven catalog of field evictions. Concurrently, the DPCC has been instructed to review its enforcement framework and file a fresh progress report before the next scheduled judicial hearing on September 25, 2026. The tribunal explicitly reminded environmental regulators to leverage Central Pollution Control Board guidelines to impose heavy environmental compensation penalties on repeat violators who refuse to relocate.