The NGT ruled that the companies’ bottling operations were in violation of environmental legislation issued by the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) as they operated without the requisite no objection certificate (NOC) to withdraw groundwater.
“We are of the view that PPs (Project Proponents) are responsible for illegal extraction of ground water at least after expiry of NOCs, issued to them by CGWA. They continued to extract ground water without any authority. Further, they are also liable to pay environmental compensation for causing loss to environment by failing to comply the most crucial condition of NOCs, i.e., recharge of water,” the judgement said.
Both companies were also accused of breaking the terms of their licences by failing to meet their requirements to recharge ground water. Moon Beverages (Coco Cola) and Varun Beverages (PepsiCo) were thus ordered to pay a total of around ₹25 crores for illegally abstracting groundwater and inflicting environmental harm.
The coram consisted of retired Supreme Court Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel as the Chairperson, Sudhir Agarwal and as Brijesh Sethi as judicial members, and Prof A Senthil Vel and Dr Afroz Ahmad as expert members.
Source: Barandbench
