Baramati Agro Limited, a sugar factory company under the control of Rohit Pawar, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator and grandnephew of NCP Chief Sharad Pawar, received a notice of closure from the pollution control board at 2:00 a.m. on September 28. The board had ordered the factory’s shutdown within 72 hours.
The Bombay High Court has temporarily extended the compliance deadline for the closure order of Baramati Agro Limited’s manufacturing units. This decision came after the company sought relief through a legal approach. A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Manjusha Deshpande extended the deadline until 5 PM on October 6 and scheduled further hearings for that date.
Senior Advocate JP Sen, representing the sugar company, informed the High Court that the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) had served the closure order on the company on September 28, 2023, at 2:00 a.m. This order followed the MPCB’s directive, issued by its Pune regional office on September 27, 2023, requiring the distillery unit’s closure within 72 hours.
In the petition filed on behalf of the company by attorney Akshay Shinde, it was argued that the MPCB’s order violated Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution as it impinged on the company’s fundamental right to engage in business and commerce. The petition contended that the decision to shut down the unit was politically motivated and an excessive and disproportionate action.
The petition asserted that the order was influenced by politics and the current political climate, intended to exert pressure on Rohit Pawar, who serves as the director of Baramati Agro and is a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. It also claimed that the MPCB failed to conduct a scientific assessment of the actual or potential environmental impact resulting from Baramati’s alleged activities.
According to the petition, the MPCB’s regional officer failed to consider the true intent of the Water and Air Act. The company argued that since its establishment in 2007-2008, neither environmental violations nor show cause notices had been issued.
The report mentioned that Baramati Agro invested 218.1667 crores in expanding its distillery operations after May 2023.
This isn’t the first legal issue involving the company. An FIR was filed against Baramati Agro earlier in the year, accusing it of disobeying the orders of a public servant. Ram Shinde, a member of the Legislative Council from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who lost to Pawar in the 2019 assembly elections, filed the criminal complaint. In this instance, the High Court temporarily suspended the company’s criminal prosecution, and the case is currently pending before the court.
