Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to allow the reopening of the Sterlite Copper Smelting Plant in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi. This comes as a major blow to Vedanta Limited, to which the copper smelting unit belongs, and a major victory for the activists who had protested against the Vedanta Sterlite Copper factory in Thoothukudi.
The Madras High Court dismissed the company’s plea to resume operations at its Sterlite Copper factory in Thoothukudi, two years after it was shut down by the Tamil Nadu government for violating environmental norms.
Notably, the movement around the plant has a scarred history. The Vedanta Sterlite Copper Smelting factory in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi was pulled up by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) for polluting air and water. The situation took a grim turn when 13 civilians protesting against the plant were shot dead during clashes with police over the operations of the copper smelting unit. Two days later, the Vedanta Sterlite Copper Smelting Plant in Thoothukudi was ordered shut by the state government.
On Tuesday, the Madras High Court refused to allow the reopening of the Sterlite Copper Smelting Plant in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi. The decision was announced by a two-member bench, comprising justices TS Sivagnanam and V Bhavani Subbaroyan. The bench said that the orders should have been pronounced on March 11 but the pandemic delayed the process.
Earlier, Sterlite had approached the Supreme Court in 2019 which directed the company to approach the Madras high court.
Vedanta had filed a total of 10 writ petitions at the Madras High Court challenging the orders passed by the Tamil Nadu government on the ground that the TNPCB’s findings were based on old reports and there was no higher level of pollutants or contamination by the plant as alleged by the board.
The Tamil Nadu government’s orders refused to offer permission to operate the Vedanta Sterlite Copper Smelting Plant, besides disconnecting the power supply.
Source: https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-madras-high-court-refuses-to-allow-vedanta-s-sterlite-copper-plant-in-thoothukudi-to-reopen-2838182
