SC shuts down mobile tower after man claimed it gave him cancer

The mobile towers can give you cancer. In a first of its kind, Gwalior-based Harish Chand Tiwari convinced the Supreme Court of India to shut down a cell phone tower on the claims that the electromagnetic radiation from the tower had given him cancer.

42-year-old Tiwari, who works as a domestic help at the residence of Prakash Sharma in the Dal Bazar area of Gwalior moved the Supreme Court against a BSNL tower ‘illegally’ installed on a neighbour’s rooftop since 2002.

Tiwari said that the BSNL tower which was less than 50 metres from the house where he worked had exposed him to harmful radiation for the last 14 years. The exposure had led to Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, claimed Tiwari.

In the order, a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha said, “We direct that the particular mobile tower shall be deactivated by BSNL within seven days from today.”

Last year, Minister of Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that radiation emissions from mobile towers don’t have adverse impact on human health and India should have more mobile towers to boost network.