Slap criminal cases on illegal water units: Madras HC

CHENNAI: The Madras high court has ordered the Tamil Nadu government to start slapping criminal cases against those resorting to illegal water extraction, and said immediate steps should be taken to end all kinds of illegal water exploitation in the state.
The bench also said pandemic-time relaxation granted to such units to function even without licences would stand withdrawn. As a consequence, no packaged drinking water unit will be permitted to operate without all necessary licences in the state.
A division bench of Justice Vineet Kothari and Justice M S Ramesh also gave four weeks’ time for the state government to take a policy decision on charging per-litre basis rate for extraction of groundwater for commercial purposes.
Pointing out the submission made by the authorities that 357 packaged drinking water units have not complied with the conditions and that they have been misusing the relaxation provided by the court in view of the pandemic, the bench wondered what stopped the state to act against such units and close them.
“The state cannot act only in the lines drawn by the courts. Don’t wait for court orders. A state is a state and it has enormous executive powers,” the bench said.
Pandemic is the word that scares everyone. But it should not scare the state as it is the state that should protect the people, the court added.
The issue pertains to a batch of PILs seeking to stop illegal tapping of groundwater for commercial purposes.
When the pleas came up for hearing on Wednesday, special government pleader Pothiraj submitted that of the identified 1,086 illegal drinking water packaging units operating in the state 396 have been closed and others have been regularised.
“In safe and semi critical areas 690 units have been issued no objection certificates and have been permitted to operate. About 510 units have been fitted with flow meters,” he said.
However, only 143 such units have complied with the condition imposed by the court to supply 15% of their total production to the state for free distribution to the public during the pandemic, he added.
He further informed the court that the 15% supply is not required now as the state has enough water reserve.
Recording the submissions, the bench posted the pleas to November 19 for the state to file compliance and status report.