Chandigarh, May 9 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) on Friday said that the "polluter pays" principle could be invoked against the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) for its failure to take remedial steps for waste processing over the years.

"You created this mess, now clean it up," the bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Sanjiv Berry observed during the hearing of public interest litigation by counsel Amit Sharma, seeking the removal of legacy waste from the Dadumajra dump site.

"The court is not going to catch hold of the contractor. We will catch hold of you. Whether you do it through a contractor or through your own employees is entirely up to you. We are not concerned with that," the court remarked. The pollute...