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Informist, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026

 

--SC orders no coercive action against Tata Chemicals in environ damage case 

--CONTEXT: HC held Tata Chemicals liable for environ damage to sanctuary 

--SC notice to Gujarat on Tata Chemicals' plea over marine sanctuary damage 

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Monday ordered no coercive action against Tata Chemicals in an environmental case, staying the Gujarat High Court order that held the company liable for extensive environmental damage to the marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Kutch. The apex court issued a notice to the Gujarat government on Tata Chemicals' appeal against the High Court's order.

 

The High Court had held that Tata Chemicals' industrial unit kept on discharging trade effluent and industrial wastewater in an Ecologically Sensitive Zone, under the guise of the interim order of the court passed in the year 1987, which, though it was covering 40 hectares, was withdrawn later in the year 2009. Even after the revised standard for the discharge of wastewater for the soda ash factory was notified through a notification in 2011 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Tata Chemicals continued with the illegal discharge and took 15 years to lay deep-sea closed pipelines with the diffuser base system of discharge, it had said.

 

The High Court had said that Tata Chemicals was liable to pay damages on the "Polluter Pays" principle for the damage caused to the fragile ecology of the area and for converting the area of the Marine Sanctuary into the "Black Desert". Tata Chemicals has a continuing duty to pay compensation until the damage caused by it is reversed and the area becomes pollution-free, it said.

 

 

It is the duty of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board and the local authorities to prevent any further damage by Tata Chemicals' industry immediately, said the High Court. The authorities should ensure stringent action, including the direction for closure of the company's industry till the closed pipeline with the diffuser base system for the discharge of wastewater of the soda ash factory as per the norms under the notification of the government in 2011 is made operational, it said. The high court had directed the pollution board to get an assessment of the damages caused to the fragile ecology of the area by engaging experts and then determine compensation payable by Tata Chemicals in accordance with the aforesaid guidelines of the board.

 

Tata Chemicals' plant in Mithapur, Devbhumi, Dwarka district of coastal Gujarat began operations in 1939, and manufactures table salt, soda ash, cement, light soda ash, sodium bicarbonate, bromine and caustic soda. Tata Chemicals had filed a petition in 2006 in the High Court against an order by a district Collector, seeking acceptance of the company's rights to continue to discharge industrial wastewater into the sea through the inter-tidal zone in an area of 200 hectares. The company had claimed that the pollution control board had permitted it to continue discharging effluents, which the state board had denied on affidavit in 2008 itself.   

 

At 1422 IST, shares of Tata Chemicals traded nearly 2% higher at INR 618.35 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Himanshi Gupta

 

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