New Delhi, Mar 8 (IANS): The Delhi High Court Friday issued notice to the central and city governments on a plea seeking removal of the mobile towers currently operating in residential areas, schools and hospitals in the national capital.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher, also issuing notice to a mobile company, asked them to file their response by April 8 on a plea of a 76-year-old man, a resident of Pitampura, who contended that his son had died of cancer in April last year due to the mobile tower radiations installed near his home.
The petition filed by Shriniwas Sharma through advocate Vikas Nagvan said that even though the mobile company had the knowledge of the health hazards associated with the mobile tower radiations, it installed the tower in his neighbourhood, within a 20-metre radius of his house.
The plea said Sharma's family members began experiencing several symptoms like severe headaches, sleeplessness, constant fever, pain in eyes and due to continuous exposure of the mobile radiation, his elder son was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and died within a year.
Seeking removal of the tower from his neighbourhood, the plea further alleged that due to radiation from the mobile tower, now Sharma's wife has been diagnosed with a swelling in her neck.
Sharma complained to the authorities concerned for removal of the mobile tower from the residential area but till date the authorities as well as the company have not paid heed to the requests, it further said.
The petition said that even though the authorities and company were aware of the existence of a government school in the vicinity, still the "company has stooped so low that it had installed the mobile tower within 10-metre radius of a government school where the children of age-range from 5 years to 17 come to study everyday".
"The mobile tower is continuously emitting harmful radiations in the neighbourhood of the petitioner and the lives of the petitioner and his family members including the lives of hundreds of children in the nearby school are at stake and till date no steps have been taken by the respondents to ensure their safety," the plea said.
The petitioner also sought the court's direction for the telecom company to "donate its one day's gross profit in charity for the wrongful acts and omissions committed by it against the petitioner and the society".