No fee escape
In a rare judgement, an industry official has been sentenced to two years imprisonment in a pollution case by the court of chief judicial magistrate, Thane, Maharashtra. The court held B V Ajhar, administrative manager of Badlapur-based M/S Matushree Textile Limited, guilty for the pollution caused in the Ulhas river basin, a notified water pollution prevention area. It charged him with violating the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Ajhar also has to pay a fine of Rs 1,000. The verdict is crucial in that it goes beyond the usual practice in pollution cases of just levying a fine on the defaulter. Hardly five or six such verdicts are recorded in the 35-year-long history of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (mpcb).
Chief judicial magistrate D G Murumkar ruled that "some punishment is necessary to check the industrialists who commit offences'. The case was filed in 1994, when mpcb found that the textile unit, processing cotton fabrics using dyes and lubricants, was violating the 1974 Act on many counts. While it was functioning since 1983, no effluent treatment plant (etp) was put in place till 1987. An etp was set up only in 1989, after the issuance of a show cause notice. Even this wasn't maintained well. mpcb started receiving complaints and decided to check the factory's effluents. It collected samples in July 1993; the analysis brought to light shocking results (see table: Case nailed). This was followed by the decade-long legal battle.
Though the verdict is happy news, it highlights India's poor legal record of punishing environmental crimes.
Case nailed
Highly polluted effluents of Matushree Textiles | | Parameter | Prescribed standard | Results | | PH | 5.5 to 9.0 | 11.22 | | Suspended solids | Not to exceed 100 mg/l | 246.0 | | BOD | Not to exceed 100 mg/ | 185.0 | | COD | Not to exceed 250 mg/l | 320.0 | | Oil and grease | Not to exceed 5 mg/l | 10.0 | | Detergents | Not to exceed 2 mg/l | 2.101 | | Metal complexes | Cotton | | Note: BOD: Biological oxygen demand;
COD: Chemical oxygen demand
Source: D G Murumkar 2005, chief judicial magistrate, Thane, Final order dated March 21, Criminal case no 289 of 1994 | |
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