Court restrains operation of 177 brick kilns at Thadagam Valley in Coimbatore district

Judges of the Madras High Court ordered that transportation of bricks should also not take place, until they heard the matter again on January 19, and analysed an order passed by the Commissioner of Geology and Mining, granting permission to the brick kilns to operate

The Madras High Court on Tuesday restrained the operation of 177 brick kilns at Thadagam valley in Coimbatore district pursuant to an order passed in their favour by the Commissioner of Geology and Mining on December 29, 2022. It ordered that even the transportation of bricks should not take place until it hears the matter again on January 19.

A Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the interim orders on a writ petition filed by activist S. Muralidharan. They also asked a Special Government Pleader to make sure that that the Commissioner was present in the court during the next hearing to explain the rationale behind the order passed by him.

Amicus curiae T. Mohan pointed out that the Commissioner had imposed fine ranging between ₹3 lakh to ₹6 lakh on each of the 164 brick kilns, while hearing an appeal against the Collector’s order closing down the kilns for various violations, and permitted them to continue operations subject to the result of cases pending in the High Court and the National Green Tribunal.

Surprised to read such an order passed by the Commissioner, the judges asked under what authority the officer had imposed the fines and permitted the kilns to continue operations when those kilns did not have valid clearances in the first place. “Who is this officer? Ask him to appear before the court,” Justice Kumar told a Special Government Pleader.

However, advocate Richard Wilson, representing the brick kiln owners, said, though the Commissioner had passed the orders last month, the kilns had not commenced operations since the electricity supply had not been resumed. However, Mr. Mohan claimed that transportation of bricks had been happening at the valley regularly.

After hearing them, the judges decided to take a call on the matter on January 19 after going through the entire order passed by the Commissioner.