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The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday declined to stop PepsiCo from drawing water for producing beverages from the Tamirab arani river in south Tamil Nadu.
According to a statement from the counsel for PepsiCo, the court dismissed two public interest litigations filed against the multinational beverage producer for drawing water from the river in Tirunelveli.
Coca-Cola was also similarly placed in the litigation. This is a “critical judgement for both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, as water from this river caters to half of both the companies’ production capacity for South India,” said the statement.
The court held that the drawing of water by the cola majors hasno environmental impact. It also lifted an interim injunction of November 2016 against PepsiCo drawing water from the river.
Speaking to BusinessLine , Vinod Kumar, Partner at J Sagar Associates, the law firm that represented PepsiCo, said PepsiCo has only used the mandated quantity of water allocated by SIPCOT for industrial purposes.
The Tamil Nadu government said that only surplus river water was supplied to the cola companies. The High Court asked the petitioner why a similar case was not filed against other companies drawing water from the same river.
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