SME Times News Bureau | 15 Aug, 2018
The Supreme Court will hear on August 17 the Tamil Nadu government's
plea against an NGT order to permit mining major Vedanta to access the
company's administrative office inside its Sterlite copper smelting
plant at Tuticorin.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra
agreed to hear the matter after the state's lawyer mentioned it for an
early hearing.
Tamil Nadu had ordered the closure of the
Tuticorin plant, around 650 km from Chennai, following protests and the
death of 13 persons in police firing on May 22.
Chief Minister K.
Palaniswami had on August 12 chaired a meeting of Ministers and
officials to decide on the next course of action after the National
Green Tribunal's (NGT) August 9 orders in a case filed by Vedanta Ltd,
which owns the Tuticorin plant.
While permitting access to the
administrative office at the plant that was shut down, the NGT had
barred the Sterlite management from accessing the production unit on the
premises and directed the District Magistrate to ensure compliance with
its order.
The tribunal had observed that no environmental
damage would be caused by allowing the company to access its
administrative section.