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Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board v. Sterlite Industries (I) Ltd. & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 220Decided 18 Feb 2019
Civil Appeal Nos. 4763-4764 of 2013
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice Navin Sinha

Background

Sterlite Industries (Vedanta) operated a copper smelter at Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu under environmental clearances and consents granted by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) from the mid-1990s onward. After local residents complained in 2013 of severe health symptoms linked to plant emissions, and following a series of closure/re-opening orders by the TNPCB and appeals to the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the plant was eventually ordered shut on 09.04.2018. The NGT, in judgments dated 08.08.2013 and 15.12.2018, had entertained and decided appeals against TNPCB's orders, and the TNPCB and others appealed those NGT rulings to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the NGT lacked jurisdiction to have entertained the appeals in the first place, because the National Green Tribunal Act only confers appellate jurisdiction over specific categories of orders, and an order passed under Section 18 of the Water Act (among others challenged here) is not one for which an appeal lies to the NGT. Since an appellate right is purely a creature of statute, the NGT could not expand its own jurisdiction by invoking a "doctrine of necessity" merely because no properly constituted alternative appellate authority existed. The Court accordingly set aside the NGT's judgments on the ground of maintainability alone (without going into the merits of the plant's closure), restored the position before the NGT's intervention, and left it open to Sterlite to challenge the underlying orders by filing a writ petition in the Madras High Court, which could consider interim relief and was urged to hear the matter expeditiously given the plant's prolonged shutdown.

Lesson Learnt

A tribunal's appellate powers exist only to the extent a statute actually grants them, even an expert body like the NGT cannot hear an appeal just because it seems like the most logical forum; parties must identify the correct appellate route (here, a writ petition to the High Court) before approaching a tribunal.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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