Guwahati, May 15: The Gauhati High Court has issued a notice to the Pollution Control Board Assam (PCBA) for changing its stance and allowing a private company to establish a “red category” industry at Amingaon.
The division bench of Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Suman Shyam, had in response to a public interest litigation (PIL/32/2023), also directed that “status quo be maintained in respect of the industry, till the next date (of hearing) is fixed.”
Notably, the private company in question, M/s M M Carbon Products Pvt Ltd, had applied for setting up a calcined petroleum cake (CPC, which falls in the ‘red category’) back in 2012, and permission was given for a one-year period only.
However, the petitioner alleged that after receiving consent for setting up the CPC industry in the year 2012, no further action was taken by the private company in pursuance of the consent letter and, thus, according to the petitioner the validity of the consent letter expired after one year.
The senior counsel, representing the petitioner, drew the court’s attention to a decision by PCBA, through a notification issued by the PCBA on February 17, 2018, not to allow any further expansion of the existing CPC units as well as setting up of new CPC industries within Assam.
“However, the existing CPC industries have been allowed to run their industries with all pollution control devices which are to meet the standards as stipulated by the Pollution Control Board, Assam,” the petitioner’s counsel stated.
The petitioner’s counsel also brought to the court’s notice a letter, dated January 27, 2022, issued by the PCBA, in which a similar application made by M/s Shyam Carbon LLP, Guwahati, seeking clearance to establish a new CPC industry, was denied.
Here, it may be noted that the company (MM Carbon Products) had filed a fresh application, bearing number 474359, dated March 24, 2021, for grant of consent to establish a CPC unit at Amingaon.
“The said application has been treated by the PCBA, as a prayer for extension the consent given to MM Carbon Products in the year 2012, and, vide letter dated December 31, 2022, consent has been granted by the PCBA, to the company to set up a new CPC unit at Amingaon, Guwahati, which is under challenge in this PIL,” the court said.
“We are of the prima facie opinion that the matter requires further consideration, because the Pollution Control Board, once having taken a decision not to allow establishment of “red category” industry in Assam from February 17, 2018, cannot be allowed to change its stance at this stage,” the court observed.