Under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, what regulatory powers can be exercised against industrial units discharging effluents in violation of consent conditions?

Section 33A empowers closure directions against defaulting industrial units, in addition to prosecution of the units and the common effluent treatment plant for illegal operation, and imposition of environmental compensation, as part of the enforcement measures a State Pollution Control Board is expected to take against continuing non-compliance.

Constitution of India — Article 32 — Suo motu writ jurisdiction — Environmental monitoring order — Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 — s.33A — Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — ss.272, 326 — Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 — s.33A — Continued judicial monitoring of industrial pollution — Held: Where successive status reports of a court-appointed Committee and Special Investigation Team disclose continuing contamination of a river system by industrial effluents, the Court may continue to monitor compliance and direct State authorities to place scientific plans for treatment and safe disposal of accumulated effluents on record, without permitting resumption of industrial operations pending such treatment. (¶1, 6) Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — ss.272, 326 — Environmental prosecutions — Invocation of graver penal provisions — Held further: Authorities investigating environmental contamination must consider invocation of the graver penal provisions available under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, and not confine prosecution to regulatory closure or compensation measures alone, in both pending and future cases of industrial pollution. (¶33) Environmental governance — High Flood Line and river corridor protection — Institutional coordination — Held further: Effective rejuvenation of a river system requires scientific determination and demarcation of the High Flood Line and ecological buffer zones before fresh industrial, commercial or residential development is permitted within the river corridor, and requires an Integrated Coordination Group to secure inter-departmental coordination among the numerous authorities whose functions bear on river restoration. Directions issued accordingly. (¶20, 33)

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