Madras High Court Declines Vedanta’s Plea To Reopen Tamil Nadu Copper Unit

The Madras High Court rejected Vedanta Ltd.’s plea challenging the closure of its copper smelter unit in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, putting on hold the billionaire Anil Agarwal-led mining conglomerate’s plan to reopen the plant that accounted for nearly half of India’s output.

"The petitioner has been consistently taking a stand that the people in the area want the petitioner to continue. The downstream industries are eager and waiting for the petitioner to commence operation. The statement given by the public in the villages surrounding the unit to the officials are all tutored and everybody in Thoothukudi district is happy to have the petitioner there and that Thoothukudi is safer than Chennai," said the order pronounced by the two-judge bench of Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice V Bhavani Subbaroyan. "All these submissions deserve to be outrightly rejected after going through the compilation filed by the TNPCB (Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board)."

Vedanta had stopped production at the Sterlite copper plant for maintenance in March 2018 and later extended the shutdown on the Tamil Nadu government’s order following deadly protests over pollution concerns. About 13 people were killed in a police firing during protests in May 2018. Vedanta then approached the National Green Tribunal, which in December 2018 allowed reopening of the Sterlite copper unit. But the NGT’s ruling was set aside by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the Madras High Court was the appropriate authority to hear the case.

The Madras High Court began hearing the case in June 2019 and reserved its verdict in January 2020.

Vedanta, among others petitions, had requested the court to quash the pollution control board's April 2018 ruling that rejected the miner's application for renewal of consent to operate the plant, and the Tamil Nadu government's order which endorsed the pollution control board's decision and asked the company to permanently close the unit.

The company argued that the orders of closure did not allege any pollution and it was passed for extraneous reasons and was mala fide. Senior Advocate Sundaram, appearing for Vedanta, told the court that the order was passed in violation of principles of natural justice as no notice of pollution was served to the company. The plant, Sundaram said, was zero-discharge and did not release any effluent into the sea.

But the Madras High Court did not agree. The order by the pollution control board, the court said, does mention the reason and the government order endorsing the decision takes note of the mandate cast on the state by the constitution and bears in mind the public interest involved in directing the permanent closure and sealing.

Senior advocate Sundaram said the company will appeal before the Supreme Court.

"We are completely shocked by this judgment. Since we have always believed that this is a completely knee-jerk reaction by the government and closure was only for political reasons. And its a very retrograde step for the country that we are importing billions of dollars of copper from China when in point of fact we would have been self sufficient as a country," senior advocate Aryama Sundaram told BloombergQuint. "In fact, we are especially aggrieved since there was never any notice ever given to us for any kind of pollution prior to this closure order and we would definitely be taking our remedies as available in law."