Issue licence to all water packaging units in 15 days, says High Court

Directing the government to complete the process within 15 days strictly in terms of GO No.142 dated July 23, 2014, including additional directions issued by the Single Judge in a batch of cases, a division bench comprising Justice Vineet Kothari and Justice R Suresh Kumar, said “In case of any further default, non-compliance of the terms of the licence, the PWD authority concerned shall pass an appropriate order, after giving an opportunity of hearing to the unit concerned, to forfeit the said security deposit amount.” Also, directing the government to close units which are yet to be closed the bench sought the concerned District Level Monitoring Committee (DLMC) to monitor the units and ensure that they resume production only upon renewal of valid licence. To have an independent cross checking as to whether they have a licence and abide by it, the bench directed the Principal District Judge of all the 32 districts to constitute a committee of two advocates with 10 years’ experience in the bar and empower them to visit these units along with the DLMC and make a report with the site photographs.

The bench also directed the State to collect the latest data for 2020 regarding classification of Firkas in 32 Districts regards ‘Over Exploited’, Critical, Semi Critical, Safe and Saline/Poor Quality Zones. Later in the day, owners of packaged drinking water units in the state started functioning and called off their indefinite strike.