The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) to give details about the effluents from the Sterlite Industries? 400,000-metric tonne copper smelter plant at Tuticorin.
A bench headed by RV Raveendran also asked TNPCB to file an application specifying the polluting materials released from the plant and suggest steps to check pollution in and around the factory.
?TNPCB is to discharge its function in maintaining pollution-free environment. If the company (Sterlite) will comply with the order, it will run. Otherwise, they will have to close down,? the judges observed.
It also asked TNPCB to specify deficiencies in the report filed by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), which had suggested various measures to arrest pollution, including air and ground water.
The bench, however, rejected the company?s plan to dispose of the matter at the earliest as it wanted to expand the capacity of the Tuticorin smelter. ?Environment issue will haunt industries as awareness among the people has come. And expansion has to wait…,? the judges observed.
The court also said it was not here to monitor every industry in the country and there were specific authorities like TNPCB to monitor it.
Earlier, the court had stayed the Madras High Court?s judgment that directed immediate closure of the London-listed Vedanta group company?s copper smelting plant, which is facing charges of violating environmental norms. The high court had also on September 28 last year directed the company to pay compensation to its workmen and also asked the state government to provide reemployment to such workmen.
According to Sterlite, its Tuticorin smelter plant had been operating for more than 12 years and had all the requisite approvals from the state Pollution Control Board and other regulatory authorities including the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).
Besides, the high court had passed the impugned order on mere allegations of violations and without any evidence, it said.
According to the company, the maintenance of a 25 metre radius from certain ecologically sensitive areas were merely recommendary in nature and were, therefore, capable of being waived upon consideration by the statutory authorities, the Central and the state governments.
The project was cleared by MoEF after examining all aspects and even in the subsequent expansions of 2004 and 2006-07, when public hearing was mandatory, two public hearings were conducted and thereafter environment clearance and consent were granted.
The High Court had held that Sterlite?s plant was within 25 km of an ecologically fragile area (the Gulf of Mannar, which was declared a National Park in 1986) and the company has failed to develop a green belt of 250 metre width around the plant .