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Judgment
This Original Application has been registered in exercise of suo motu power on the basis of the incident of death of five workers in a food industry in Morena, Madhya Pradesh, on account of the impact of poisonous gases when these workers had entered the tank in a factory manufacturing synthetic cherries for paan and the food industry.
The said news item has been published in the Times of India, Times News Network dated 31.08.2023 titled “5 die in toxic gas leak at MP factory”, which has persuaded this court to initiate action, having found prima facie violation of Environmental Laws resulting in such an incident.
Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of “Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai vs. Ankita Sinha & Ors.” reported in 2021 SCC Online SC 897 has upheld the exercise of suo moto power by the Tribunal.
Having regard to the nature of incident, we deem it proper to constitute a joint Committee comprising of the Member Secretary, State Pollution Control Board; representative of Central Pollution Control Board not below the rank of Additional Director; a Senior Scientist of Regional Office of MoEF&CC; Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health (DISH) and also the District Magistrate of District Morena. The District Magistrate will act as a Coordinator in the joint Committee. The joint Committee will gather all the information from the spot after visiting the spot and ascertain the exact cause of death of these workers and the lapses which resulted into generation/escape of poisonous gas in the tank and the compensation to be given to the deceased. The Committee may also refer the orders of this Tribunal in such matters. The report will be submitted within three weeks by e-mail at [email protected] preferably in the form of searchable PDF/ OCR Support PDF and not in the form of Image PDF.
The matter will now be taken up by the Central Zone Bench, Bhopal of the Tribunal. Hence, it is transferred to the said Bench.
List on 03.10.2023.