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Saturday, Mar 12, 2005

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Order on closure of 218 units stayed

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 11. The Supreme Court today stayed the operation of an order issued by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests directing the closure of 218 industrial and mining units across the country for not taking the mandatory clearance under the Environment Protection Act.

No clearance

A Bench of Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice P.P. Naolekar had on February 21 passed an order directing the closure on a petition filed by the Goa Foundation, which alleged that hundreds of industrial units were operating without environmental clearance.

The court had asked the Government to issue the directions for closure within 10 days. Accordingly, the Ministry issued the order on March 2.

Industry plea

A three-Judge Bench, comprising Justice Sabharwal, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice Naolekar, today stayed the March 2 order taking into consideration the applications filed by several industries, including Coal India, TISCO, India Cements, Singareni Collieries, pleading for a direction to keep the order in abeyance as otherwise it would disrupt many industries.

Mining sector

The petitioner had said that the 218 units — 70 in the industrial sector and 148 in the mining sector — were spread across Rajasthan, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Himachal Pradesh.

Apart from the mining units, the industrial units were mainly engaged in the production of asbestos, bulk drugs, finished leather, pesticides, chemical dyes, electroplating and distilleries.

Though the issue had been brought to the notice of the Union Government repeatedly, no action had been taken to ensure compliance of the provisions of the Act by these units. Today, the Solicitor-General, G.E. Vahanvati, submitted before the Bench that the Government had complied with the directions issued on February 21.

Severe losses

Senior lawyers representing the industries submitted that the order would result in stoppage of production in many essential areas, including thermal plants depending on coal as also life-saving drugs produced by pharmaceutical industries.

The drug industries alone would suffer a loss of over Rs. 6,000 crores if production was stopped as they had export commitments to meet.

Directive

Considering all these aspects, the Bench asked the Centre to respond to the applications filed by the industries within three weeks and rejoinder, if any, in two weeks thereafter and posted the matter for further hearing after five weeks.

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