Polluting industries face SC fury-----‘Set up effluent treatment plants in three months or shut down’
Source: The New Indian Express, Date: , 2017
The New Indian Express, New Delhi, Feb 2017: Taking a serious view of industries letting
out effluents into rivers and water bodies resulting in pollution, the Supreme
Court on Wednesday directed that all the industries to ensure that they put in
place their effluent treatment plants (ETPs) and make them functional in three
months. The court warned that power supply will be cut off to these industrial
units if there is no compliance in this regard. A three-judge bench of Chief
Justice J.S. Khehar and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Sanjay K. Kaul passed
this order on a PIL alleging that industries are not setting up ETPs and even
the ETPs are not fully operational. It was pointed out that effluents were
released even from ETPs as they are not adhering to the standards. The bench
said those units which release effluents above the permissible norm would also
meet with a similar fate. They would then have to prove to the respective state
pollution boards that they had removed the problem before they are allowed to
resume operations again.