Mahesh Grover, J. - (1.) THIS civil writ petition has been preferred by the petitioner seeking issuance of a writ in the nature of certiorari for quashing the impugned order dated 14.9.2011 (Annexure P -38) whereby the consent of the petitioner under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Water Act') has been rejected and with a further direction to the Punjab Water Pollution Control Board (hereinafter referred to as 'the Board') to grant its consent. The petitioner is a manufacturer of pressure cookers, having its manufacturing plant at Hoshiarpur. According to it, its activity is environment friendly and does not contribute to any pollution and that it is regularly applying for renewal of consents under the provisions of the Water Act and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Air Act') and the last consent granted by the Board was to expire on 8.5.2007. The petitioner applied for consent for a period of 15 years under the provisions of both the Water Act and the Air Act. The petitioner was informed that the fee deposited by it is inadequate and that it was required to deposit Rs. 50,000/ - for each of the consents under the Water Act and the Air Act for further five years which would cover the period from 2007 to 2012. The petitioner company complied with the said requirement.
(2.) THAT on 18.3.2008, according to the petitioner, it applied for the consent for 4000 pressure cookers per day to be extended upto 31.12.2012 which was granted and the consent extended under section 25/26 of the Water Act on the same terms and conditions as was granted to it in the year 2006. One of the prime conditions was that the industry shall not get any process like frosting, buffing, anodizing and furnishing from sub -contractors which themselves have no valid consent of the Board under the requisite provisions of the Water Act and the Air Act. The petitioner once again applied for the requisite consent on 23.2.2009 and also sought no objection certificate for installation/addition of anodizing process to increase its capacity from 600 anodised cookers per day to 1200 anodised cookers per day. This no objection certificate was granted to the petitioner in July, 2009. However, in October, 2009 the Board wrote the petitioner company that they were not complying with certain conditions of the no objection certificate, in particular condition No. 10 and that the industry has increased its production capacity from 2800 Nos. /day to 3056 Nos. /day. After much correspondence the respondent -Board on 12.1.2010 collected the sample of treated trade effluent water for testing from the petitioner's effluent treatment plant and the application for consent made by the petitioner in 2009 was returned asking the petitioner to file a fresh application as the capacity mentioned in the application war. 4500 against the consent of 2800 pressure cookers and the capacity of 10000 pressure cookers per day mentioned in letter dated 6.12.2009 and further that the higher pH value of water in samples collected on 12.1.2010 was detected.
(3.) THE respondent -Board thereafter visited the premises of the petitioner in May, 2010 and pointed out the deficiencies whereas the petitioner in turn persisted with its claim that everything was in order.;