CHENNAI: Vedanta Limited moved the Madras high court challenging an order passed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), which rejected its application seeking permission to reopen its now-defunct Sterlite Copper plant in Tuticorin and permit the manufacture of ‘green’ copper (copper produced from copper scraps) in the unit.Admitting the plea on Wednesday, the first bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan observed, “your (Sterlite) background seems to be haunting.”To this, senior advocate Satish Parasaran, representing Vedanta, said, “my Lords, every saint has a past, and every sinner should have a future.”“So, you are trying to come out of your past, and they are not allowing you to come,” the bench said.How could a unit which incurred so much investment never be reopened, Satish wondered. Responding to the plea, additional advocate general J Ravindran said, “This is a closed industry. They are trying to pour old wine in a new bottle and call it a green copper.”First of all, they should get consent to establish; only then could they seek consent to operate. They bypassed this and directly sought consent to operate, he added. “In fact, this area is declared a contaminated area. They wanted to operate from a contaminated area. According to us, the present of the company is also haunting,” Ravindran said.As to the prayer of the petitioner seeking to constitute a court-monitored multi-disciplinary expert committee comprising representatives of TNPCB, the Union ministry of environment, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Union ministry of mines to consider their application on the ground that the TNPCB could not understand its proposal and its technical aspects, the AAG said let the company not judge our (TNPCB) competency.Recording the submissions, the bench directed the TNPCB and the state govt to file their detailed response by Feb 26.According to the petitioner, in view of the criticality of copper for India’s energy transition, infrastructure growth and national resource security recognised in the Union govt ‘Copper Vision Document, 2025’, the company proposed a comprehensive technological overhaul through a renewed ‘green copper’ model.
