Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and V. Bhavani Subbaroyan of the Madras High Court are slated to deliver their verdict on Tuesday on a batch of cases filed by Vedanta seeking permission to reopen its Thoothukudi Sterlite copper smelting plant that remains sealed since May 28, 2018, due to environmental concerns.
The issue had gained greater national prominence after 13 persons were shot dead in police firing against anti-Sterlite protesters on May 22, 2018.
Thereafter, the company agitated the issue before the Supreme Court, which on February 18, 2019, directed it to approach the High Court and ventilate all its grievances.
Accordingly, Vedanta filed 10 writ petitions in the High Court, challenging a series of orders passed by the State government and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. The orders under challenge included refusal to renew consent to operate the unit, disconnection of power supply and sealing as well as permanent closure of the unit.
The cases were admitted by a Division Bench led by Justice M. Sathyanarayanan on March 1, 2019. Thereafter, when they got listed before other Benches as per roster, a couple of judges in two different Division Benches recused themselves and so the matters were ordered to be listed before a Bench led by Justice Sivagnanam on June 11, 2019.
The then Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani had ordered the listing of the case. Since Justice Sivagnanam was sitting along with Justice Subbaroyan, the Bench began hearing the case from June 20, 2019, and held 28 special sittings till August 30, 2019, because lawyers on both sides argued for days together and relied upon voluminous documents.
While senior counsel C. Aryama Sundaram, G. Masilamani, P.S. Raman and AR.L. Sundaresan represented Vedanta, Advocate General Vijay Narayan defended the State government and senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan appeared for the TNPCB. MDMK leader Vaiko, senior counsel R. Vaigai, N.G.R. Prasad, T. Mohan and A. Yogeshwaran argued against Vedanta.
Even before arguments could conclude, Justice Sivagnanam got deputed to the Madurai Bench of the High Court for three months from September 1, 2019. When the advocates made a joint representation to let him be in Chennai for about a week, Chief Justice Tahilramani rejected it and ordered the cases to be listed in Madurai before Justices Sivagnanam and R. Tharani.
This administrative order created a delay in completing the hearing since the lawyers felt that listing the case before a new judge in the Bench would force them to argue the matter afresh. Subsequently, on orders of the incumbent Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi, the cases were listed once again before the old Bench from December 16, 2019. Finally, the lawyers wound up their arguments on January 8, when the Bench reserved its verdict.