India’s Supreme Court orders controversial copper smelter plant Sterlite to remain shut

• The SC has ordered that the plant owned by Vedanta Private Limited will remain shut.
  
• In December 2018, National Green Tribunal had said it could be reopened.
  
• The court has also directed the CBI to conduct an investigation regarding the police firing which killed 13 protestors.

The Supreme Court has ordered that the controversial Sterlite Copper plant owned by Vedanta Private Limited in Tamil Nadu will remain shut, overturning an earlier order with the country’s main environmental court.

In December, India’s National Green Tribunal had allowed the reopening the plant, directing the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to make it operational within three weeks.

In its judgment, Supreme Court said it Vedanta can now appeal the decision in the Madras High Court, saying that NGT does not have the jurisdiction to pass the order for its reopening.

The Sterlite Copper plant came under the scanner last year, after violent protests broke out in Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin against the plant’s reported adverse impact on pollution. The TNPCB had then ordered for the plant to be shut permanently, citing a provision of the Water Act, 1974.

In May 2018, in a police firing, 13 people were killed and now, the Supreme Court has ordered the CBI to conduct a fair and impartial investigation regarding the firing, according to ANI.

In December last year, the parent group Vedanta had appealed to the Supreme Court that the Tamil Nadu government was giving a bad name to the company over the Sterlite controversy, asking for electricity to the plant to be restored.

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