Shillong: The Supreme Court has issued an interim stay on the demolition of coke oven plants ordered by the Deputy Commissioner of East Jaintia Hills district in Meghalaya.
Hearing a Special Leave Petition, the Supreme Court on Friday, said: “demolition of coke plants, as directed by the Deputy Commissioner, East Jaintia Hills District shall remain stayed. However, the said Deputy Commissioner shall be at liberty to seal the coke plants’ premises, which shall remain non-operational.”
The petition was filed by Druk Fuels Limited which approached the Supreme Court following an order of the East Jaintia Hills district to demolish all “illegal coke plants” which are operating flouting environmental and other norms.
Apart from the East Jaintia Hills district administration, the West Khasi Hills district administration has issued a similar order and demolition of such illegal coke oven plants has already begun.
In East Jaintia Hills a few illegal coke plants were demolished during this month for not obtaining consent to establish and operate from the state pollution control board. At least 50 illegal coke oven plants have been identified by the authorities.
Similarly, the district administration of West Khasi Hills has identified 57 illegal coke oven plants within its jurisdiction.
Demolition and arrest of those operating these plants, some from Assam, have been executed by the district authorities.
Out of the 57, 13 have been demolished using controlled blasting in Nonglangpar from July 7 and the demolition of the rest would have been completed within 30 days.
Many have also been shut and an audit to ascertain the source of the coal for these illegal plants is being examined by an audit committee of the government.
The decision to demolish the illegal coke plants and take appropriate legal action has been taken from an order issued by the Meghalaya High Court in December 2022. The court responded to a PIL stressing the importance of scrapping these works to restore the ecological balance.
The High Court during its hearing on the continued illegal coal mining and transportation directed the state government to take action on illegal coke oven plants, which are believed to be one of the sources of this illegally mined coal.
The state has been claiming that it is taking action, however, the High Court said “the ground reality appears to be otherwise” and directed the state government to take action and indicated that the CBI should investigate the illegal coal mining operation in the state.
The state government finally started to take action by demolishing the illegal coke oven plants after the High Court’s order on July 4.
