- (1.) WE have heard Shri K. N. Bhat, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners; learned Advocate General for the State of Rajasthan and Shri Santosh Hegde, learned Senior Counsel for the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board.
(2.) THE grievance the petitioner makes in this petition requires urgent and alert attention of the respondents. The petitioner appears to have several industrial establishments. One of them, a plant manufacturing "H Acid", was closed down and certain ameliorative steps were initiated in an environmental public interest litigation to remove the contaminating waste products of that industry in the area. Shri Bhat says that this task was undertaken to be done by the authorities themselves at the petitioner's cost and that the petitioners had so far paid Rs. 6 lakhs towards that exercise. The other three industries of the petitioner located in the same area are said to consist of a plant manufacturing edible oil by solvent extraction process and a sulphuric acid plant and associated industry. The petitioner says that these industries have been closed down at the behest of the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board arbitrarily and in a high-handed manner. Shri K.N. Bhat says that the petitioner's losses are almost Rs. 27 lakhs a day.
(3.) SHRI Bhat read to us the earlier affidavit filed by the Board in the environmental litigation to point out that on the Board's own showing, these three units were not offending any laws against environmental pollution and that the Board even without giving any opportunity to the petitioner to rectify or install any effluent treatment plant, that the Board considered necessary to be installed, which according to their earlier affidavits were unnecessary, straightaway ordered closure of the units from 4-12-1993.;