AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
B.S. Verma, J.—Heard Mr. Siddhartha Singh, Advocate for the Petitioners and Mr. Sudhir Kumar, Advocate for the Respondents.
By means of this writ petition, the Petitioners have sought following relief:
i) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned order dated 4.12.2008 passed by the Respondent No. 1/Environment Appellate Authority, Dehradun in Appeal No. 18/2007 "M/s Jitendra Atta Chakki and Anr. v. Uttarakhand Environment and Pollution Control Board, Dehradun" & order dated 13.11.2007, bearing reference No. UEPPCB/ ROD/Consent /HDR-549/07/2796, passed by Respondent No. 2.
ii) Issue mandamus commanding the Respondent No. 2 to restore the consent in favour of the Petitioner.
iii) Issue any other order or direction which this Hon''ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case.
iv) To award cost of the petition to the Petitioner.
According to the Petitioner, the Petitioner had applied for 5 KW electricity connection for which the amount was deposited on 5.11.2007 but prior to it the Respondent No. 2 conducted the inspection of Petitioner''s unit and found that the Petitioner was using load more than 5 KW and that too in the name of third person. Thereafter, the consent granted to the Petitioner by Uttaranchal Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board, Dehradun, was revoked. Feeling aggrieved, the Petitioners preferred an appeal before the Appellate Authority (Respondent No. 1). Vide order dated 4.12.2008, the appeal was also dismissed by Respondent No. 1. Hence, this petition.
It would be relevant to mention here that while dismissing the appeal of the Petitioner the appellate authority had given liberty to the Petitioner to apply for consent before the Board on the basis of new electricity connection of 5 KW in his name and the appellate authority was also directed to dispose of the application of the Petitioner in accordance with law within one month from the date of receipt of the application.
A counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the Respondents wherein at Para-7 it is stated that certain non-polluting and non-hazardous small scale industries have been exempted from obtaining consents to establish and to operate by Office Order dated 24.9.2005. (Annexure CA-1).
Para-2 of the said office order dated 24.9.2005 reads as under:
...these industries shall however be required to submit their application in prescribed format along with the prescribed documents in the Board Office and the acknowledgement of the same shall be treated as approval of the Board. No separate NOC from GM, DIC or Board shall be required. These industries are also not required to obtain consent to operate from the State Pollution Control Board. The acknowledgement of submission of the application along with prescribed documents for obtaining consent to operate shall be treated as consent to operate....
From a perusal of the above office order, it is clear that if the Petitioners submit their application in prescribed format along with prescribed documents in the Board Office, the acknowledgement of the same shall be treated as approval of the Board to operate the grinding unit of food grain.
Having considered the submissions of learned Counsel for the parties and on perusal of the above-quoted office order, the writ petition is disposed of finally with liberty to the Petitioners to move an application in prescribed format along with prescribed documents in the Board Office and the acknowledgement of the same shall be treated as approval of the Board for Petitioner''s unit for grinding the food grains. On receiving the acknowledgement, the Petitioner may start his unit. However, it is clarified that the Respondents/authority would be at liberty to inspect the Petitioner''s unit in order to ensure as to whether the Petitioner is following the norms or not.