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The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday dismissed a plea by the Vedanta Group to reopen its copper smelter plant in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi, citing “serious violations and repeated breaches.”
The plant has been closed since May 2018 after 13 people were killed as police opened fire to quell a protest over alleged pollution caused by it.
On Thursday, a three-member bench of the SC, headed by Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra dismissed the appeal filed by Vedanta, against an August 2020 ruling by the Madras High Court.
“The closure of industry undoubtedly not a matter of first choice. However, the repeated nature of breaches, coupled with the severity of the violations would in this analysis neither the statutory authorities nor the HC take any other view unless they were to be oblivious of their plain duty,” the apex court reportedly said in its judgment.
Sterlite wanted to double its capacity from 400,000 tonnes to 800,000 tonnes.
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‘It is a great victory for the people who fought for the pollution-free country. Vedanta is a consistent polluter,” said Jim Raj Milton, a senior leader of the People Right Protection Centre (PRPC) in Tamil Nadu, an NGO that was part of the protests against the Sterlite unit.
Meanwhile, Vedanta's Sterlite Copper said in a statement, "We are awaiting the order from the Hon’ble Supreme Court and will evaluate our next steps once our legal team has examined the same."
Meanwhile, Vedanta's Sterlite Copper said in a statement, "We are awaiting the order from the Hon’ble Supreme Court and will evaluate our next steps once our legal team has examined the same."
Since the late 1990s, the plant has been facing resistance from local fishermen citing issues like soil, water, and air contamination.
In July 1997, more than 90 people were hospitalised after a sulphur dioxide gas leak in the unit.
It was due to an alleged sulphur dioxide leak that the then Jayalalitha government ordered the closure of the unit, which was later overturned by the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
In December 2018, the NGT directed the re-opening of the plant, which was set aside by the apex court since it was not under the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
In 2019, the Tamil Nadu government informed the Madras High Court that there had been 84 incidents of gas leaks from the plant since 2013.
