Greenpeace fails to substantiate charges, asked to pay Rs 50 lakh

MUMBAI: A Valsad court in Gujarat has asked environmental agency Greenpeace to shell out nearly Rs 50 lakh as damages to Vapi-based Chemi Organics after the international organisation had blamed the company for polluting and endangering public health in Vapi.

In a judgment passed on September 30, principal senior civil judge GC Gamit noted: “It is humbly submitted that the defendants (Greenpeace activists) miserably failed to prove that the statements made in the defamatory article are true and they have also failed to prove that they have made fair comments after making proper and diligent enquiry...”
London-based Greenpeace activists David Santillo and Bob Edwards had in the mid-90s issued a booklet titled ‘The Stranger’, alleging the chemical industry in Vapi and Ankhleshwar of polluting the environment.

They had claimed to have collected samples of sludge waste from outside the factory site of Chemi Organics, one of the largest producers of chloro benzene in India.

The judgment is likely to come as a relief for the Rs 4,000-crore chemical industry in Gujarat as the report had tainted most of the units as environment-unfriendly. “Santillo had written that Vapi is a home to Chemi Organics... (that) it is the worst chemical plant he has ever seen and will ever set eye on,” says United Phosphorus chairman Rajju Shroff. “But it has been proved in the case that the activists had never visited Chemi Organics factory and didn’t collect the sample from the factory,” he added.

Mr Shroff is the chairman of Indian Small and Medium Chemical Manufacturers Association.

Greenpeace, may appeal against the verdict. “We are not going to accept the judgment and we are confident that the facts mentioned in the booklet are right. The court itself has stayed the implementation for 90 days during which we can appeal,” G Anantha Padmanabhan, executive director of Greenpeace India,