The Supreme Court on Friday refused to intervene with an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to freeze its own directive to publish a warning about hazardous lead content in Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) pipes.
A Vacation Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra, however, granted petitioner-advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay liberty to approach the tribunal.
Interim order
The Bench reasoned that the May 2 order was an interim one and the issue could be sorted out in the NGT itself, instead of being litigated in the Supreme Court.
Mr. Upadhyay’s lawyer and senior advocate Vikas Singh said lead was not globally used because of its harmful effect on health, and industries had phased it out.
The petition contended that the publishing of the warning would safeguard the people from the adverse health effects of lead-contaminated water.
On May 25 last year, the NGT asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests to lay down standards for the use of lead in PVC pipes. The measure was to be implemented in consultation with the Indian Bureau of Standards. The tribunal intervened after learning that lead content in water pipes, used in buildings, contained toxic materials.
The NGT’s decision was based on a petition filed by Jan Sahyog Manch, an NGO, for a directive for remedy to ecological damage caused by lead in the manufacture of PVC pipes. The NGT, however, decided to keep in abeyance its May 25 order after plastic manufacturing units said they were not heard.
