Vellore District Environment Monitoring Committee rep. by its Secretary Mr. R. Rajendran Vs. The District Collector and Ors.:Decided on 28.01.2010

IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADRAS

Writ Petitions Nos. 8335 of 2008 and 19017 of 2009

Decided on 28.01.2010

Vellore District Environment Monitoring Committee rep. by its Secretary Mr. R. Rajendran Vs. The District Collector and Ors.

AND

The All India Skin and Hide Tanners and Merchants Association, a Society registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act rep. by its Joint Secretary M. Faiyaz Ahamed
Vs.
 The Loss of Ecology (Prevention and Payment of Compensation) Authority, rep. by its Member Secretary, The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, represented by the Member Secretary and The Vellore District Environment Monitoring represented by its Secretary

The judgement deals with two writ petition filed in the High Court of Madras regarding alleged inaction in part of certain tanneries in the State of Tamilnadu for the prevention of pollution.

Initially, some of these companies contested the fact that they had to pay any compensation at all. However, later they changed their plea and while agreeing with the quantum of the compensation assigned, requested that they be allowed to pay the huge amount in installments. This was allowed to them keeping in mind the interests of both affected parties. At this stage, the write petition in question was filed praying for a writ of Mandamus for (1) the implementation of pollution control measures and closure of industries as they hadn’t carried out any of the directions issued to them for the purpose of pollution control and (2) payment of compensation to affected families which as per the contention of petitioners, AISHTMA had not been done. The Madras High Court quashed the petitions based on these conditions, the reasons for which have been given ahead. One of the contentions that no compensation had been paid by the parties at fault was not true. As the polluters had abided by the directions of the Authorities and paid the compensation amount which was now lying as the ‘Environmental protection fund’. However, the contention of the petitioners was true in so far as their allegations that the compensation had not been distributed to the aggrieved individual parties. But, the petition fails as they had not even taken into the account some of the partial, and some complete compensation amounts that had been made available to the ryots.

Also, their contention that absolutely no pollution control measures had been taken and that the industries should thus be shut down was also ill-founded as there was material placed on record to prove that all the tanneries had atleast Reversis Osmosis Plants in place, and several other measures. So, both petitions in this regard were squashed by the High Court of Madras.