SC stays closure of units

Faced with an outcry in the coal and pharmaceutical industries, the Supreme Court today stayed the government order closing down 218 industries in various parts of the country for not complying with environment norms.

The ministry of environment and forests had issued the closure order on March 2 following a directive of the court on February 22.

When the case was taken up today by a bench headed by Justice YK Sabharawal, Solicitor-General GE Vahanvati stated that the earlier order of the court had been complied with.

It meant that 218 industrial and mining units that did not have the environmental clearance certificate required under the Environment Act, had to be closed down. These units are spread over the whole country, from Himachal Pradesh to Tamil Nadu.

Among those which have to be closed down by the central authorities are 70 industrial units and 148 mining units. The industrial units were manufacturing asbestos, bulk drugs, finished leather, pesticides, chemical dyes, and were also involved in electroplating and distilling.

A large number of lawyers representing coal, pharmaceutical and other major sectors told the court that if their units were closed down, there would be a crisis in the country; life saving drugs would not be available; export orders worth Rs 6,000 crore of drugs would suffer; coal-based thermal plants would not work, affecting industrial life; and essential services all over the country would be paralysed. After this, the court stayed the government order, which was passed at the court's instance.

The order was passed after a public interest petition was moved by Goa Foundation, an NGO, for enforcement of environment norms on industries. Earlier, the court had pulled up the government for negligence and asked it to close down the concerned units within ten days.