Nagpur police registered 22 cases after receiving 95 complaints about firecracker violations, as high ambient noise, limited equipment and lengthy documentation procedures made it difficult to enforce the high court’s 55-decibel limit across the city.
The complaints included firecrackers being burst on roads, nuisance in public places, violations of prescribed timings and breaches of prohibitory orders. Police teams also received complaints about excessive noise at several locations during the festive period.
A senior police officer said measuring the noise generated by individual firecrackers was particularly difficult because continuous traffic movement, vehicle honking, loud conversations and crackers being burst in neighbouring areas created high background noise. Each police station had been provided with one decibel meter, according to the report.
At Sadar, Sitabuldi, Mahal and Wardhaman Nagar, ambient noise levels reportedly crossed 100 decibels. Officials said these conditions made it difficult to isolate the sound of a particular firecracker and establish the basis for an offence. By the time police teams reached some locations, the situation had changed or surrounding noise had affected the measurement process.
The volume of complaints also created an operational challenge. Police teams had to determine which locations required immediate attention while responding to reports from different parts of the city. An official said teams often struggled to reach a location before the violation ended or the relevant sound could no longer be measured.
The procedure for registering a case added another delay. Police personnel were required to record decibel levels, prepare a spot panchnama, complete other documentation and, according to sources cited in the report, arrange two independent witnesses for each action. The process took approximately 30 minutes per case, a senior police officer said.
That meant enforcement capacity was constrained even when complaints were arriving simultaneously from different parts of Nagpur. Officers also faced resistance from members of the public who objected to intervention on the grounds of religious sentiment, according to a police officer quoted in the report.
The gap between complaints and registered cases does not by itself establish that every complaint represented a legally provable violation. However, it shows the difficulty of converting noise complaints into enforceable action when measurement depends on equipment, timing, witnesses and detailed on-site documentation.
The episode has also raised questions about how urban noise rules can be implemented in dense neighbourhoods where traffic, public activity and multiple sources of sound overlap. The high court’s 55-decibel limit may be clear as a standard, but police teams still need to identify the source, record the relevant level and complete the evidentiary process before registering an offence.
Police are separately investigating fires reported during the festive period to determine how many were caused by firecrackers. The enforcement exercise and the fire investigations remain ongoing, according to the report.
