NEWS

NEW DELHI: A trial court has slapped a fine of Rs 35,000 on an industrialist, convicted for discharging huge quantity of untreated water from his factory into a drain after he pleaded guilty for the offence.

Metropolitan Magistrate Sandeep Garg passed the order on a complaint by Delhi Pollution Control Board, which accused Paradise Foam Industries' proprietor A K Jain of discharging 700 to 800 litres of untreated water into the drain every day without the consent of any authority concerned.

Jain was charged under various provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, for not installing Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) and discharging untreated effluents without any consent required under the Act.

The Act provides for a minimum one year of imprisonment for a person found guilty of discharging untreated effluents into streams.

Jain, however, resorted to the newly-enacted provisions of plea bargaining and pleaded guilty in lieu of lesser punishment. The court was also informed that he had already paid Rs 55,000 as compensation to the pollution control board and the industrial unit run by him too had been shut in 2001, a year after the pollution control board initiated the proceedings against him.

"Considering the fact that the matter has been settled between the complainant and the convict, and that the industrial unit was shut long ago, he (Jain) is sentenced to pay a fine of Rs 35,000 in default of which he will (have to) serve simple imprisonment of 30 days," Metropolitan Magistrate Sandeep Garg said.