NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday started hearing an appeal against a 2020 judgment by Madras High court where it had rejected the plea by Vedanta Limited to reopen its copper plant in Thoothukudi.
The case is being heard by a bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Suryakant and Justice Vikram Nath. The arguments are now being heard at length by the apex court and will continue for the next few days.
The copper plant run by Vedanta arm Sterlite has remained closed since mid-2018, as per a Tamil Nadu government order. The company is carrying out legal battles across various portals to restart the plant.
The Madras High Court in August 2020 had dismissed the company’s petition seeking permission to reopen the same which was closed following protests over environmental pollution. After that, however, The apex court had allowed Sterlite to operate its plant for oxygen production during the second wave of the pandemic citing ‘national need’ of oxygen on a temporary basis.
A bench headed by Justice Rohinton Nariman while hearing the plea in December 2020 by Vedanta to operate the plan for 30 days under the supervision of a committee of the court was not persuaded by Vedanta's submissions that the plant has received the requisite environmental permissions and clearances between the early nineties and January 2018, and best way to find out if the plant actually pollutes will be to restart it on a trial basis and see if it actually pollutes the surroundings.
In a judgment of 815 pages in 2020, A division bench comprising Justice T.S. Sivgnanam and Justice V. Bhavani Subbaroyan of Madras high court had observed that the plant had violated environmental regulations. The case was argued for 42 days in the high court. The state high court had dismissed the petitions filed by Vedanta against orders passed by the state government and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board against the smelter under which they refused the company permission to reopen the unit or engage in production, disconnected electricity supplies, and sealed the premises.
The Sterlite Copper unit had accounted for more than one-third of the country’s copper output before it was closed.