Gauhati High Court Overturns Pollution Control Board's Consent Extension

Court Ruling on Pollution Control Consent

Guwahati, Nov 14: The Gauhati High Court has annulled a decision made by the Assam Pollution Control Board (APCB) that improperly extended a “Consent to Establish” for a highly polluting industrial facility at the Amingaon industrial park.

The court has mandated the APCB to pay a penalty of Rs 1 lakh, which is to be allocated to the Women and Child Development Department to enhance facilities for specially-abled girls in care homes located in remote areas lacking adequate resources.

According to the ruling by Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Pranjal Das, the State may seek to recover this cost from officials who neglected to acknowledge that the Provisional Consent to Establish (PCTE) was never legitimately granted for the Calcined Petroleum Coke Unit. Even if it had been, it was not followed by a Consent to Operate, and the PCTE had expired on December 9, 2013, making any extension unlawful.

The petitioner, NOC Foundation, expressed concerns over environmental damage and pollution in Amingaon due to the approval of a ‘red’ category industrial unit.

The court found that the extension of the expired PCTE, which had lapsed nine years prior, was unauthorized and allowed for the industry's expansion.

The respondents' legal representative failed to provide any legal basis for the APCB's decision to extend the PCTE in 2022, which had expired on October 9, 2013, nearly nine years earlier.

MM Carbon Products Pvt Limited received the PCTE in 2012, valid until 2013, and sought a new CTE in 2019, following the APCB's ban on further expansions of existing and new CPC units and Low Ash Metallurgical Coke Industries due to severe pollution in the vicinity.

The PCTE, initially granted for the expansion of its calcination unit with a production capacity of 12,000 MT per annum, was extended, although the APCB had previously ruled that the consent was only valid for one year. In 2022, the APCB extended the PCTE for the firm.

The court noted that the ‘consent’ issued in 2012 was provisional and questioned how the APCB permitted the existing unit to function without a final Consent to Establish (CTE) or Consent to Operate (CTO).

“The reasons are evident, as this could only occur if the Pollution Control Board, Assam, ignored such operations, thereby allowing a ‘red’ category industry to function without a specific CTE and CTO,” the ruling stated.

Additionally, the court raised concerns about the reliability of the Board’s online portal, which produced acknowledgments lacking dates and application identification numbers from previous years. It characterized the portal as “entirely unreliable and untrustworthy” given the circumstances of the case. The court concluded that the Board had exceeded its authority, stating that extending the provisional consent after nine years of its expiration was “legally flawed and unsustainable” under current environmental regulations.