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Taking a tough stand on environmental issues, the Gujarat High Court has directed steelmaker Electrotherm (India) Ltd to close down its manufacturing plant in Kutch district and quashed the environmental clearance granted to it by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest without holding a public hearing as per rules.
Electrotherm's 36,000 tonne per annum (tpa) facility for producing structural steel, alloy steel and stainless steel at Samkhiali in Bhachau taluka of Kutch district is also known for making of Yo-bikes, India's first battery-run two-wheelers.
On Friday, a Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Mr Justice J.B. Pardiwala, directed the company to stop manufacturing immediately and shutdown the plant in 10 days.
The ruling came on a PIL filed by an RTI activist, Mr Vipul Patel, who had complained about the pollution caused by the plant.
According to the petitioner, Electrotherm set up the plant in 2004, commenced operations in 2005, applied for environmental clearance in 2007 and got one from MoEF in 2008, in violation of the Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2006, and without the mandatory public hearing.
In 2009, the company also applied for another environmental clearance for a large-scale expansion of the plant aiming to triple capacity, although it had no green nod for the main project itself.
This clearance, too, was granted in January 2010, again without the public hearing.
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