HC to hear plea on reopening Sterlite case on June 27

A division bench comprising Justice TS Sivagnanam and V Bhavani Subbaroyan before whom the plea came up for hearing on Thursday was informed about the State filing its counter. Following this, the bench in consultation with the counsels on either side held that the hearing into the case would commence from June 27 while June 26 would be the last day for filing of additional documents if any.

The bench which had allowed four impleading petitions supporting Sterlite’s closure during the previous hearing, refused to accept an impleading petition moved by a Sterlite staff employed there since its inception. The bench on wondering as to what stopped the person from approaching the court when the hearing on whether to admit impleading pleas or not was taken up cited the dismissal of similar impleading applications filed by small-scale industries in support of Sterlite. It also noted that Sterlite itself was not in favour of including them as parties to avoid multiplicity of proceedings.

Shambhu Kallolikar, Principal Secretary, Department of Environment and Forest, in the counter filed submitted that a brief look at the history of compliance with consent conditions, reports of Court mandated Committees, deterioration of key environmental parameters of air and water quality, and huge quantities of hazardous wastes stored inside the plant and dumped by Sterlite around the district conclusively demonstrate non-compliance with statutory conditions, and has merely feigned compliance in a cursory manner at best.This poor compliance was visible in terms of gas leaks, non-disposal of hazardous wastes, accumulation of high volume wastes within the premises, and the widespread poisoning of the air and water, leading to protests from the locals and widespread agitations, protests, and complaints to the State on a continuous basis, the counter said. Ground water analysis report taken from bore wells within the unit premises as well as surrounding areas have not been furnished to ascertain the impact on ground water quality. The Unit has not removed the Copper slag dumped along the river Uppar and patta land, thereby obstructing the flow. It has also not constructed any physical barrier between river Uppar and slag land fill area of patta land to prevent slag from reaching the river, the counter submitted while refuting all claims made by Sterlite.

The counter running to over 80 pages also noted that Sterlite has at no place dealt with the impact on ground water and pollution caused by it and has failed to demonstrate before this Court that it didn’t cause air, ground waterpollution.