Gujarat HC directs Electrotherm to close unit.

Law et al. News: Bangalore: Sunday, May 13, 2012.

In a significant development, the Gujarat High Court directed closure of the steel bar production unit of Electrotherm Private Limited as it lacked proper environment clearance mandatory under Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006.

The bench was acting on a petition filed by an RTI activist one Vipul Patel of Samakhyali village of Kutchch district. Petitioner alleged that the company has been running the unit without observing environment norms. The petitioner alleged that the company had not taken the consent of villagers before getting Environment Clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).

The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice JB Pardiwala held, “The respondent company shall stop its production with the immediate effect while the entire unit situated at the Samakhyali village of Kutchh shall be shut within ten days.”

The bench observed that the environmental clearance given for the plant was illegal as there was no public consultation before it was set up.

Electrotherm has a steel plant in Kutch with 360,000 TPA capacity for producing structural steel, alloy steel and stainless steel. The company started producing steel bars at Kutchch since 2005 without getting an environment clearance. In the year 2006, they get a nod from Central Pollution Control Board to run the unit.

In the year 2009, the company expanded its capacity to 800% but they did not opt for the necessary environmental clearance certificate for the expansion. It was argued on part of the petitioner that the 2009 amendment in EIA Notification made it compulsory for a company to seek clearance for expansion beyond 50 percent after conducting consultation with the public.

Petitioner’s advocate Tejas Barot stated, “The company has not taken the consent of villagers whose lives have been put at the risk after the plant has started production. They opted for a post facto permission which was impermissible as the company did not observe the norms fpr seeking permission.”