Mumbai: The Bombay High Court will hear the final arguments of the Maharashtra government and the manufacturers or plastic and thermocol, from October 29. The HC also refused to grant any relief to a federation of retailers, seeking relaxation of the blanket ban on plastic items. A division bench of Justices Shantanu Kemkar and Sarang Kotwal was seized with a civil application moved by the Federation of Retail Traders, urging the bench to allow using polythene for packaging purposes.
The federation had sought direction to the government to exempt its members from ban and allow them to use polythene for packing their commodities and goods. During the course of the hearing on Friday, the bench perused the application of the federation and said it won’t pass any interim orders granting any kind of relief to the petitioner association.
“All these aspects can be dealt with at the stage of final hearing,” the bench said. “We don’t want to pass any interim orders in this matter. Let the matter come up for final hearing from the week commencing from October 29. We will hear all the parties concerned,” the judges said. Meanwhile, the federation now seeks to withdraw its application claiming the government has allowed it to use plastic or polythene material for packing its goods.
The government had by a notification dated March 23 prohibited the use of plastic bags (with and without handle), single-use disposable plastic or thermocol dishes, plates, cups, bowls, containers used for packaging foods, glasses, straw, forks, spoons, plastic used for packaging food grains or food materials, PET bottles below 500 ml etc.
However, by another notification dated April 11 the rules were modified wherein the use of PET bottles of all capacity “made of high-quality food grade virgin Bisphenol-A free material” with a pre-defined buyback policy printed on it was allowed. The notification also cast a duty on the manufacturers to set up collection centres, reverse vending machines and crushing machines at different places.