Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on April 2, acquitted a director and manager of a company who were almost three decades ago sentenced to 18 months’ rigorous imprisonment for allegedly discharging highly polluting sewage effluents from their Panvel factory into a stream.
The court established that criminal charges must be precise, detailing the accused’s specific involvement, and cannot be applied solely based on their position within the company. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) had pursued legal action against numerous companies and their executives for breaching the Water (prevention of pollution and regulation) Act, claiming they discharged heavily contaminated untreated waste and sewage into water bodies within a restricted zone.
Justice Milind Jadhav’s ruling noted the charges against the two executives lacked specificity, and the MPCB failed to follow mandatory protocols for water sample collection and analysis. The court quashed both the trial court’s conviction from December 31, 1996, and its subsequent confirmation by Raigad’s additional sessions court in August 2002. The court emphasised that the twin-sample collection procedure, which includes built-in verification measures, must be strictly followed. “Relying solely on the Government Analyst Report based on a singular sample is fatal to the prosecution case,” Justice Jadhav stated, declaring the conviction “clearly unsustainable”.
P A Parekh and M Chattarji, the director and manager of a private Petro Chem company, challenged the lower courts’ decisions in 2002. Their counsel Ganesh Gole argued that the prosecution sanction was “vague” and part of an “omnibus order” against 19 companies issued by MPCB in August 1986, lacking specific details of each company’s alleged violations.
Gole contended that the company executives weren’t automatically liable for prosecution based on their positions, noting the company possessed valid discharge consent. MPCB’s representative Abhay Patki maintained the prosecution, conviction, and sampling procedures were appropriate and followed all requirements.
In his detailed judgement, Justice Jadhav noted, “the complaint filed by the board reveals that no specific or direct role has been attributed to the applicants in the entire complaint except for stating their name in the cause-title of the proforma of the complaint.”