Comments
The Supreme Court of India (SC) today gave an interim relief to 12 manufacturing units inside the Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ), which were asked to suspend operations by the Gujarat High Court on environment issues earlier this month.
“The Supreme Court has granted stay on the Gujarat High Court order and has further ordered that the 12 SEZ units which are currently operating can continue to operate,” an APSEZ statement said on Monday.
The matter was listed before the three-judge Forest Bench (Green Bench) of Justice A.K. Patnaik, Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar and Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla, who also directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to process APSEZ’s application for environmental clearance within 30 days - as was directed by the Gujarat High Court on January 13.
In its interim order, the SC has allowed all the Units to continue function, but restrained them from further construction.
The Apex Court issued notice on the petition filed by the companies challenging the Gujarat High Court order of closing down the units operating inside the Adani Group’s SEZ located at Mundra in Kutch.
Companies including SKAPS Industries Pvt Ltd, Dorf Ketal Speciality Catalyst Pvt Ltd, Thermax Ltd, Oriental Carbon & Chemicals Ltd and Oilfield Warehouse & Services were among the petitioners in the SC.
Earlier, the Division Bench of Gujarat High Court comprising Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J.B. Pardiwala had ordered suspension of commercial and developmental activity by 12 units in the SEZ with immediate effect. The order came in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the villagers of Navinal, a village inside the SEZ.
The petitioner villagers had claimed that the developer, APSEZ did not have clearance to set up a port-based multi-purpose SEZ at Mundra. Environmental clearance under the EIA notification has to be obtained before the setting up of a project, including an SEZ.
However, the SEZ had received deemed environmental clearance from the MoEF in May 2012, prior to which the SEZ and several units inside it had become functional and started commercial operations.
In May 2012, the High Court had stayed construction and further development activities by units including the Adani owned units of the APSEZ until environment clearance is issued.
The High Court had maintained that APSEZ had violated rules under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, which does not allow allotment of land to individual units if the developer of the SEZ doesn’t have the mandatory environment clearance.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.