STELLA SILKS LIMITED Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a writ petition presented by a Limited Company which carries on certain manufacturing activity of silk fabrics under the name and style of M/s. Stella Silks and has the manufacturing unit located at No. 411, Telugarahalli Road, Anekal Taluk, Bangalore District. It is the claim of the petitioner that it is 100% Export Oriented Unit ('eou' for short) engaged in the manufacturing of silk fabrics by using raw silk imported from China and it has very sophisticated machinery imported for the manufacturing process of high technology and it reduces the manual labour to a considerable extent.

(2.) IN the course of its manufacturing activity, the petitioner's unit also has a dyeing unit, which is used for the purpose of dyeing the silk fabrics. In the activity of dyeing, water is extensively used and quite naturally, in the process, water gets contaminated and the petitioner has to get rid of this contaminated water. It appears, that the petitioner sought the consent of the second respondent-Board by making suitable application under Section 25 (1) of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 ('the Act' for short ). It appears, that conditional consent order had been issued; in favour of the petitioner, which in turn enables the petitioner to seek for an industrial licence to set up the silk manufacturing unit issued by the Central Government under the scheme known as "establishing of Industrial Units for the purpose of exporting their entire production" under the provisions of Imports and Exports Act with special incentives given for the same. It is the further case of the petitioner that such conditional consent order had come to be renewed by the second respondent-Board which had enabled them to continue to operate the industry in question.

(3.) HOWEVER, it appears, the petitioner having not complied with various conditions that had been imposed on it by the Board in the matter of discharging pollutants from its factory premises, particularly, discharge of contaminated water, had been put on notice by the Pollution Control Board to take remedial steps immediately and in the alternative, the Board will be constrained to pass appropriate orders in this regard. In this context, a show-cause notice dated 2-1-1999 (Annexure-F to the writ petition) had come to be issued for issuing certain directions under Section 33-A of the Act proposing to direct the Management of the petitioner industry to close down the industrial operation or process forthwith until further orders and with further directions to the Chairman/secretary of the Karnataka Electricity Board to stop the power supply to the industry forthwith and until further orders and for cancellation of the licence that had been granted by the Government of Karnataka and for such other allied actions.