Bellandur lake clean-up on, board in a fix after High Court stay

A day after the High Court stayed all proceedings in the Bellandur lake case before the Principal Bench of the National Green Tribunal in New Delhi, BDA went ahead with the clean-up drive.

BENGALURU: A day after the High Court stayed all proceedings in the Bellandur lake case before the Principal Bench of the National Green Tribunal in New Delhi, Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) went ahead with the clean-up drive on Friday.

“The court has directed to vacate the notice issued to the petitioner Shashi distilleries. Status of notices issued to other industries remains the same and we are seeking legal opinion on snapping power and water supply to the industries discharging industrial wastes pipe to the lake,” said a BDA official.KSPCB officials are not sure of their next step.

Their advocate Devaraj Ashok said the body was in a Catch-22 situation. They had to act in a manner so that they don’t offend either the High Court or the NGT.

“I haven’t gone through the entire order yet. We will issue a letter to the petitioner retracting orders of closure. The judgment has only asked to stay the ongoing work, so we won’t take any further action on this.”

Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, petitioner in the case before NGT, Delhi principal bench, said, “We have got the court orders and are going through it. We will explore other legal options too.”

Shashi distillery challenged the NGT’s April 19 order and also the order dated May 12 by the KSPCB for closure of the unit, on the grounds that the Delhi Bench of NGT has no jurisdiction to hear the matter that comes under the jurisdiction of Southern Bench of NGT in Chennai.

Even otherwise, NGT should have followed the principles of natural justice by giving opportunity to the aggrieved parties before issuing closure orders, the petitioner had contended.

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