M A I N   N E W S

HP told to pay 1 crore for damage to ecology

New Delhi, September 23
Imposing highest ever cost for damaging ecology, the Supreme Court today asked Himachal Pradesh to pay a whopping Rs 1 crore for neglecting the ecology by allowing companies to paint advertisements on eco-fragile rock faces on both sides of the Rohtang-Manali road.

A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice B.N. Kirpal, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice Arijit Pasayat said this money would form part of the Rs 5 crore corpus to be created from money to be levied on the delinquent companies.

It would be used for restoring the ecology disturbed by painting of advertisements on rockfaces, they said. The court also asked Solicitor General Harish Salve, who first brought this matter to its notice following a newspaper report, to work out the liabilities of Coca Cola, Pepsi, MBD Books and Birla White for setting up of the corpus. After taking into record the report of the Central Empowered Committee on this issue, the Bench said “It is the duty of the state government to protect environment and for dereliction of this duty Rs 1 crore will be deposited by Himachal Pradesh to meet the expenses of restoration.” PTI