SC asks Hindustan Agro Chemicals to pay Rs 200 cr for defying orders

Supreme court of India.

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Supreme court has come down heavily on a chemical company for defying its orders for the past 15 years to pay Rs 37 crore compensation for polluting water in Rajasthan and enhanced the amount to Rs 200 crore as punishment.

“This is a very unusual and extraordinary litigation where even after 15 years of the final judgement (date of judgement - February 13, 1996) the litigation has been deliberately kept alive by filing one interlocutory application or the other in order to avoid compliance of the judgement,” a bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and H L Dattu observed and directed Hindustan Agro Chemicals Pvt Ltd to pay the compensation of Rs 37 crore with 12 per cent compound interest amounting to approximately Rs 202 crore.

“The judgement of this court has not been permitted to acquire finality till date. This is a classic example how by abuse of the process of law even the final judgement of the apex court can be circumvented for more than a decade and a half,” said the Supreme court.

The judges regretted that though the apex court had directed the closure and attachment of the company’s assets as early as 1997, the company had successfully dodged compliance due to its financial strength and influence. The bench imposed a further cost of Rs 10 lakh on the company for prolonging the litigation.

(C) PTI News