The Bombay High Court has issued an interim stay until October 6 on an order from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), asking Rohit Pawar, an MLA of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, to close a unit of his firm Baramati Agro Ltd.
A division bench led by Justice Nitin Jamdar said it would hear a petition filed by Baramati Agro challenging the closure order on October 6, and the authorities should not act on the MPCB fiat until then. The petition, filed through advocate Akshay Shinde, alleged that the MPCB order was passed owing to political influence and considering the present political situation to pressurize the director of the petitioner company that is Rohit Pawar.
Rohit Pawar, a grand-nephew of Sharad Pawar, is the CEO of Baramati Agro which is into animal and poultry feed manufacturing, sugar and ethanol manufacturing, co-generation of power, trading of agri-commodities, fruits and vegetables and dairy products. Notably, Ajit Pawar, Rohit's uncle, is currently the leader of a group of the Nationalist Congress Party that is a part of the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition in Maharashtra. The petition stated that the corporation has periodically received the authorizations required to run the unit and that it had also been given an environmental clearance in 2022.
MPCB claimed that during a regular inspection of the unit situated in Pune, certain irregularities were found. Earlier this month, the MPCB issued a show-cause notice to the company, following which a reply was filed and there was a personal hearing. However, the MPCB officials failed to take into consideration any explanation, clarification or evidence submitted by the company and issued an order on September 27 directing close-down of manufacturing activities of the unit, the plea said.