Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003 |
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Corporate
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Courts/Legal Issues Coca-Cola directed to stop ground water use — Given 2 months time to find alternative source K.C. Gopakumar
Kochi , Dec. 16 THE Kerala High Court today directed Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Ltd to find alternative source of water for its bottling plant at Plachimada in Palakkad in a month. Mr Justice K. Balakrishnan Nair also directed the Panchayat not to interfere with the functioning of the company if it used water drawn from other sources. In addition, the company should only be allowed to use the quantity of water equivalent to the water used by a land owner with 34 acres of land. The panchayat and the State Government had been directed to ensure that the company did not extract any ground water after two months from today. The court ordered that the Panchayat with the assistance of the ground water department should find out the quantity of water a land owner with 34 acres of land had been using for his/her domestic and agricultural purposes. The directions were issued while disposing of a writ petition by the Perumatty Gram Panchayat against the Government order staying the cancellation of licence of the company. The Government had also directed the Panchayat to constitute a expert team consisting of representatives of ground water department, the pollution control board and public health department to go into the allegations against the company. The licence was cancelled by the panchayat in May 15, 2003 on charges of over-exploitation of ground water. The Panchayat had contended that the Government had no power to pass such an order. The protection of water sources was the exclusive domain of the Panchayat. When the Panchayat took a decision based on relevant material, the Government could not interfere with it . The court held that the extraction of water at the current level of (510 kilolitres per day) was illegal. It had no right to extract such an amount of natural resources. The panchayat and the State Government were bound to protect ground water against excessive exploitation.
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