The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to accept an affidavit that the Centre submitted on solid waste management, calling it “junk”. The court is not a “garbage collector”, the bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said.

The Centre had filed an 845-page affidavit that the Supreme Court said had incomplete information, PTI reported. When the bench asked some questions, the counsel for the Centre was unable to answer them properly.

“There is no point in filing affidavits if they contain nothing,” the court said. “You have not seen it and you want us to see this affidavit. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to impress us? We are not impressed. You are trying to dump everything on us. We are not going to accept it.”

The bench added: “Don’t do this. Whatever junk you have, you dump it before us. We are not garbage collectors. Be absolutely clear about this.”

The court had asked the Centre to submit within three weeks details on the states and Union territories that formed advisory boards in accordance with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016. It had asked the government when the states had formed the boards, names of the members and details of any meetings they had held.

On December 12, 2017, the court had asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests to follow up on solid waste management with states.

The hearing was related to a matter from 2015, when the Supreme Court took cognisance of the suicide of the parents of a seven-year-old boy, who died of dengue after allegedly being denied treatment by five private hospitals.