Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the state government to take urgent steps as deemed proper in connection with the oil spill off Chennai Coast following recent collision of two ships at Ennore Port.
When a PIL filed by the National Union of Fishermen, represented by its president M.E. Raja seeking an order to detain the two vessels MT Dawn Kanchipuram and MT BW Maple (Iranian ship) came up, the first bench of CJ Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M. Sunder refused to order the detention and asked the petitioner under what law the court could order the detention of the ships.
The petitioner also prayed the court to direct the authorities to prosecute and recover costs from persons responsible for the disaster and protect the interests of Indian fishermen. The counsel for the petitioner, Nandhakumar, said that considering the principle of “polluter pay”, if the Iranian ship crosses the territorial waters of India the government may not be able to recover anything from the owner of the vessel.
He said, though the country has a National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan as early as 1996, however, no proper mechanism has been implemented to launch immediate action to halt oil from spreading. As per the contingency plan, the state government has equal power and responsibility to check spreading oil spill. The Inspector General of Coast Guard, the Indian Coast Guard, East Coast Guard Region has been the designated officer for initiating a prosecution and recover costs, he added.
The Bench said, “This, of course, in no manner absolves the government of the responsibility to remove the pollutant, for which the NGT, Southern Bench, is already stated to have been approached.”
Stating that no direction can be issued, the bench said, “the state may look into the issue urgently to take such steps as deemed proper in the given situation, especially keeping in mind that as per the petitioner there have been some recent developments in terms of registration of FIR and some action post-filing the petition.”
