Sanctuary Asia reports that the Mumbai Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court acquitted Ramoji Rao, Editor and media entrepreneur, Shailendra Yashwant, independent photo-journalist and Bittu Sahgal, Editor, Sanctuary Asia/Sanctuary Features (then Divisions of Advertising Concessionaires Pvt Ltd) of all charges in a defamation suit filed against them in May 1996 by United Phosphorous Ltd (UPL), one of India’s largest agro-chemical/pesticide manufacturers this Saturday.
The case dates back to July 1995 when Shailendra Yashwant wrote an article on the environmental damage caused by chemicals and pesticides units in Gujarat’s Vapi industrial area and its adverse impact on the Daman Ganga river. The article that was commissioned by Sanctuary Features was published by Newstime, Hyderabad.
The article referred to controversies surrounding dangerous levels of pollution in Vapi, which is a chemical hub in Gujarat, where the discharge of untreated toxic effluents through unauthorised and illegal outlets was polluting the Daman Ganga river. One of the key points highlighted was also the importation of a second-hand chlor-alkali plant from Norway by UPL that had been closed because it was said to be an environmental liability of the exporting country. In response, almost a year later, in May 1996, UPL filed a defamation case against journalists Yashwant, Sahgal and Rao by UPL under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.
The case went on for over 22 years and on Saturday, August 4, 2018, Metropolitan Magistrate, K G Paldewar, finally dismissed the case by acquitting the three journalists of all charges. He also went on to laud the journalists and their Senior Advocate Raj Panjwani for their hard work in demonstrating the impacts of pollution in public interest. He also mentioned that there were clear Supreme Court orders prohibiting activities that led to hazardous waste pollution of the kind central to the article in question.
The court said that the full and final judgment would be available in three to four weeks.