Supreme Court: SC stays NGT’s 12,000 crore waste disposal lapse fine on Maharashtra

NEW DELHI: The Supreme court on Tuesday stayed a National Green Tribunal order directing Maharashtra government to deposit Rs 12,000 crore for failure to treat solid and liquid waste generated in the state and utilise the compensation corpus for it.
Appearing for the Maharashtra government, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi told a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that the imposition of huge cost is detrimental to the steps being taken by the state for solid and liquid waste management and reminded the CJI about a bench headed by him having monitored the Rs 26,000 crore STP project for Mumbai.
After hearing Rohatgi, the bench stayed the NGT‘s September 2022 order directing the Maharashtra government to pay a compensation of Rs 12,000 crores for failure to treat solid and liquid waste generated in the state. It had directed the state to deposit the amount within two months in a separate ‘ringfenced account’ (for a specific purpose) to be operated as per directives of the chief secretary.