The Supreme Court on Monday extended the stay on closure of Sterlite Industries' copper smelting unit at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu till the second week of December. Late last month, the high court at Chennai had ordered the unit's closure for various violations of ecological norms over a prolonged passage of time.
The SC had, on Sterlite's appeal, first ordered a stay on October 1. Today, it told the company - a part of the UK-based Vedanta group - to explain within a month what steps it had taken to comply with the HC's various interim orders over the years. The bench, chaired by R V Raveendran, also asked the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to state at the next hearing the latest position on the company's activities and their environmental impact.
At one point, they explained to one of the petitioners for closure that, "You cannot throw (out) a running mill just like that".
