No interim relief for Vedanta, but notice to govt on Sterlite closure

The division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice Nirmal Kumar before whom the plea moved by Vedanta came up hearing on Friday ordered notice returnable by March 27.

However, the bench refused to pass any interim orders on the access sought by Sterlite for purposes of maintenance and basic administration.

Vedanta in its plea running to around 100 pages had submitted that it continues to suffer a daily loss of about Rs 5 crore, which roughly translates to about 1,380 crores since the plant was sealed 9 months ago. The closure would also result in a loss of foreign exchange earnings of USD 1.5 billion per annum, the plea said.

It also submitted that closure of an industry ought to be a last resort in the absence of any other alternative and that TNPCB being a statutory public authority had failed to consider all balancing factors before passing an order for permanent closure.

The present plea challenging the May 23, 2018 order of the TNPCB refusing renewal of consent to the plant as well as permanent closure, was in line with the Supreme Court suggestion.

The Supreme Court on February 18 had set aside the order that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) allowing the opening of the copper smelting unit on the ground that NGT did not have the jurisdiction to entertain the plea. It had held, “Given the fact that we are setting aside the NGT judgments involved in these appeals on the ground of maintainability, we state that it will be open for the respondents to file a writ petition in the High Court against all the aforesaid orders. If such writ petition is filed, it will be open for the respondent to apply for interim reliefs considering that their plant has been shut down since April 9, 2018.”

It may be noted, that protest against Sterlite’s permanent closure turned violent on the 100th day of the protest resulting in police firing on May 22 last year killing 13 protestors.