SC proposes expert panel to evaluate concerns, conditions for consent to Vedanta plant to operate in Thoothukudi

The copper smelting plant was permanently shut down on the orders of the Tamil Nadu government six years ago on grounds of pollution.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday proposed forming a “non-partisan” committee to objectively evaluate environmental concerns and to suggest additional conditions, if any, for re-opening Vedanta Sterlite’s copper plant at Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu.

The copper smelting plant was permanently shut down on the orders of the Tamil Nadu government six years ago on grounds of pollution. The 2018 closure of the plant was preceded by nearly 30 years of local protests, which had even led to an incident of police firing.

“We have to find a way forward... We have to reach a win-win solution by which the concerns of the State as a custodian of the health of the people will be protected, your [Vedanta] concern as an investor is protected and our concern that this is not a facility lost to the nation is taken care of,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a three-judge Bench, observed during a day-long hearing.

The Bench said the committee could submit its report in the apex court in a month.

Vedanta has moved the court against the closure. Senior advocate Shyam Divan, for the company, said the plant was a national asset. Its production had amounted to 1,200 tonnes of copper a day. Fifty per cent of the product was used domestically. There were only three or so such plants. Thousands of employees were in dire straits with the closure of the plant. Mr. Divan said the Tamil Nadu government had itself consented to locating the plant in an industrial area. The industry, being in the red category, had been operated under the highest degree of scrutiny. The degree of compliance with environmental norms had been very high at the threshold. The State’s direction to close the plant was disproportionate.

Mr. Divan said Vedanta was in “broad agreement” with the suggestion of the court to form an expert committee. He urged the court to let the company refurbish the plant at its own risk and cost in the interim. “There is degeneration taking place every month. It needs massive overhauling,” Mr. Divan pleaded.

Senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, for the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, countered that the “way forward” for Vedanta was to “sell the plant and go elsewhere”. They had attempted it, he said.