Overview

• A bench of Chief Justice B. R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran set aside the NGT’s penalty and its direction for an ED money-laundering probe against CL Gupta Export Ltd.
• The court rejected turnover-linked penalties, finding no nexus between the alleged pollution and the firm’s reported ₹550 crore revenue.
• Justices faulted the NGT’s 145-page order as rhetoric-heavy, noting that application of mind is not proportionate to the number of pages.
• Regulatory oversight remains, with CPCB and state PCBs permitted to monitor the unit and recover or reassess environmental compensation consistent with law.
• Emphasizing proportionality, the court said the rule of law does not allow authorities to extract a “pound of flesh” in environmental enforcement.