CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday refused to grant interim relief to Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper unit, which has been shut for nine months now.
The company has pleaded with the court to allow it to enter its Thoothukudi unit for care and maintenance alone and submitted that it was prepared to wait to commence the production. However, the division bench, consisting of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice M Nirmal Kumar, was not prepared to grant immediate relief.
The bench, while ordering notices to the government and TNPCB, has put the onus on the State and held it responsible for any mishap or environmental damage that might happen when the factory is under the state’s control. Advocate-General Vijay Narayan submitted that the State had all wherewithal to take care of the factory which is presently under the control of the Thoothukudi Collector.
Senior counsel CS Vaidyanathan for TNPCB submitted that the State had experts to take care of the maintenance and that the state would be responsible for whatever happens in the factory. However, senior counsel C Aryama Sundaram, appearing for Vedanta, has expressed apprehensions over technical know-how possessed by the Collector or other authorities in charge of the factory. “We don’t want to run the plant till the final order comes, but permit us only to do maintenance work. Who is better than us to do it? We are ready to spend money,” Sundaram said, while also highlighting the need to access the company’s records as the financial year end was approaching.
Sundaram alleged that there has been a motivated political campaign against the company since its inception and that the State government had ordered closure of its factory without any valid reason. “The company was taking care of 38 per cent of the domestic copper needs of the country and was generating a tax revenue of `2,000 crore to the State every year,” he added. The court has ordered the State government and TNPCB to file its responses before the next hearing posted for March 27. Vedanta had to approach the Madras HC following the Supreme Court’s directive.