The Madras High Court campus is set to become a plastic-free zone from November 10, when Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) T. Raja will inaugurate ‘manjappai’ (yellow cloth bag) vending machines at five locations on the campus and commission a plastic bottle crushing unit.
The move follows an order from a Division Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and P.T. Asha, who were seized of a case related to the ban on single-use plastics, directing the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry as well as all bar associations to make the court campus plastic-free.
Pursuant to the order, Additional Advocate-General J. Ravindran took up the issue with Environment Secretary Supriya Sahu. On Wednesday, he informed a Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, hearing forest and environment-related cases, of the move.
‘Crack down on plastics in hill stations’
After hearing him, the judges directed the Collectors of Dindigul and the Nilgiris to crack down on the use of plastics in Udhagamandalam and Kodaikanal by holding periodical checks in shops and other commercial establishments and prevent the entry of plastic products into the hill stations.
The Collectors of Coimbatore and the Nilgiris were further directed to hold a meeting within 10 days for establishment of a plastic collection point on the Mettupalayam-Nilgiris route so that effective checks could be carried out to prevent tourists from carrying plastics to the hill station.
While passing interim orders in a case related to eradication of Prosopis Juliflora (‘Seemai Karuvelam’) trees, the judges directed the State government not to adopt a piecemeal method while calling for tenders to remove the invasive species from waterbodies and instead, issue orders for its removal at one go.
