Down To Earth brings you the top environmental cases heard in the Supreme Court, the high courts and the National Green Tribunal
Brick kilns in Odisha
The National green Tribunal (NGT) on February 10, 2020 directed the Odisha State Pollution Control Board “to complete all those actions initiated and presently in process within the requisite time frame” regarding 640 brick kiln units in Ganjam district that violate provision of the Environment Act, 1986 and Air Act, 1981.
The application came up before the tribunal in 2015.
Polluting CETP
The NGT on February 6 directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Gujarat PCB to reassess the formula applied for assessing environmental compensation regarding the discharge of untreated effluents into the Sabarmati river from the common effluent treatment plant at Narol, Ahmedabad.
The tribunal questioned GPCB on why compensation had been assessed only up until November 22, 2019 though violations continue. A joint committee comprising CPCB and GPCB has to submit an action taken report on the issue.
Mining affects Shakti Sagar
The bench of Justice Raghuvendra S Rathore of the NGT on February 6 asked advocate Om Shankar Shrivastava to visit the Khantipur area of Rajasthan’s Ajmer where illegal mining was allegedly being carried out, preventing the free flow of water into the Shakti Sagar lake.
The execution application had been filed with a request to direct the authority to comply with the directions issued by the tribunal on February 28, 2017.
The NGT, in its order of 2017, had directed the district collector to immediately take steps by cancelling the khatidari rights of illegal miners and imposing fines for destroying the environment. The court noted that deep excavation had resulted in creating a pool of water “which would otherwise have flowed from the catchment area into the Shakti Sagar lake.”
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