Gauhati High Court Quashes Revival of Expired Petroleum-Coke Consent, Imposes Costs on Pollution Board

Consent-extension order set aside

The Gauhati High Court has quashed an Assam Pollution Control Board order that extended a long-expired provisional consent connected with a calcined petroleum coke unit at Amingaon. Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Pranjal Das found that the authorities had not established a legal basis for treating a fresh-consent application as revival of the earlier permission. The bench also imposed costs and directed consequential action. The operative order states that the decision will take effect on 10 December 2026, rather than immediately on pronouncement.

An old permission and later applications

The dispute concerned a provisional consent issued in December 2012, valid for one year, and later applications made after it had lapsed. The Board eventually issued an extension order in December 2022. The company relied on its efforts to secure consent and on the administrative history, including applications and changes to the online process. NOC Foundation challenged the extension through public-interest litigation, arguing that the regulatory treatment of the unit could not be justified by the expired provisional permission.

A fresh application could not be rewritten as an extension

The Court examined the application and the governing record. It found that the later request was for fresh consent and that no statutory provision had been identified authorising the Board to convert it into an application extending the old provisional consent after years of lapse. That distinction drove the decision. The validity of an application for consideration did not itself establish the validity of the particular permission eventually granted. A regulator must exercise the power the law actually supplies, rather than choose a convenient description for an application.

The precise industrial activity mattered

The judgment distinguished the company’s earlier electrode carbon paste activity from the petroleum-coke calcination unit under challenge. It did not treat permission for one industrial activity as proof of authority for another. It also examined the relevant regulatory notifications and the distinction between petroleum coke used as fuel and as feedstock. The outcome should therefore not be reduced to an assertion that every use of petroleum coke was prohibited. The case turned on the consent history, activity and legal authority established on this record.

Portal criticism was expressly confined

The bench questioned the reliability of acknowledgements and application identifiers produced through the online process in the circumstances before it. Importantly, it expressly confined that criticism to this case and said it should not prejudice other applications from the period. That qualification prevents a finding about one administrative record from becoming an unsupported general accusation against every applicant. The Court’s assessment of the documents remained part of its examination of the disputed permission, rather than a universal invalidation of all digitally processed consents.

Costs and consequential action

The Environment and Forest Department and the Pollution Control Board must take the consequential steps needed to give effect to the quashing. The Board must pay one lakh rupees in costs to the Women and Child Development Department for specified facilities for girls with disabilities in care homes. The judgment permits the State, if advised, to recover costs from officials found responsible. That permission is not an immediate finding of personal monetary liability against named officers or an automatic recovery direction without the required assessment.

The outcome has a defined scope

The public-interest petition succeeded to the extent stated, while other prayers were not granted for reasons explained in the judgment. The specific extension order is set aside with a deferred operative date. For environmental administration, the decision underscores the need to identify the exact industrial activity, the life of the permission and the statutory power used. For affected parties, the practical next step lies in implementing the judgment’s consequences within that scope. The order does not decide unrelated industrial applications or supply a general substitute for lawful consent procedures.

Key directions

• Quash the Board’s order dated 31 December 2022 extending the disputed consent.
• Take consequential measures and pay the directed one-lakh-rupee costs for the specified welfare purpose.
• Apply the effective date stated in the judgment: 10 December 2026.