Actor Juhi Chawla on Monday moved the Delhi High Court against the proposal of setting up a 5G network connection in India, Live Law reported. She said that until the short-term and long-term negative impacts of the technology on human, animal, and plant life were not known, its rollout should not be approved.
She also expressed concern over the detrimental impact on the environment due to the technology.
Chawla filed a 5,000-page lawsuit with 33 parties as defendants, including the Science and Engineering Research Board, Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Electronics and Information, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Indian Council of Medical Research, some universities, and the World Health Organization.
The petition stated that the State’s duty was to ensure that “products of a hazardous nature – or even a potentially hazardous nature – are not permitted to come into the economic mainstream till they are certified safe by the State, both for existing as well as future generations”, according to a report in Bar and Bench.
According to the Live Law report, the actor told the court that in 2019, Belgium’s capital Brussels halted the rollout of 5G services in view of the health risks it posed. She stated that “the risk in 2021, when presented with the intensity of radiation of 5G technology, is more than 100x than which was prevailing under 2G technology 20 years ago, in 2001”.
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However, according to the World Health Organization, no adverse health effects have been causally linked to exposure to wireless technologies so far. “Health-related conclusions are drawn from studies performed across the entire radio spectrum but, so far, only a few studies have been carried out at the frequencies to be used by 5G,” a report published by WHO in 2020 stated.
Justice C Hari Shankar, who heard the matter on Monday, transferred the petition to another bench. It will be heard on Wednesday, according to a report in Bar and Bench.