Telangana High Court on Monday directed the Pollution Control Board to furnish a fresh report within 10 weeks on the status of industries polluting environment in Jeedimetla industrial area.
The interim direction was passed by a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy while hearing a couple of PIL petitions on industries causing irreparable damage to environment in Jeedimetla and other industrial areas in Ranga Reddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts.
While a news item in a Telugu daily was taken up as PIL plea, a letter sent by a lawyer through email was converted into a PIL petition.
Reasserting the HC stand that multiple petitions on same matter would not be entertained, the Chief Justice disposed of one PIL plea and consented to hear the other one. The bench directed that Cyberabad Police Commissioner be impleaded in the plea since the police had to assist the authorities in closure of polluting industries.
The PCB counsel informed the bench that from 2015 to 2019, the officials found that 45 industries in Jeedimetla were causing pollution.
Closure notices
They were issued closure notices and their licences were suspended. Licences of 16 of them were eventually revoked. The Chief Justice sought to know what had happened to the remaining industries and if the PCB had conducted fresh inspections after 2019 and if so what were their findings.
The Chief Justice instructed the PCB to undertake a fresh exercise of issuing notices such industrial units and furnish a latest status report on the matter.
