Kerala - Kochi   

Petition seeks review of Coca-Cola judgment

Staff Reporter

HIGH COURTROUND-UP

KOCHI: The People's Forum for Natural Justice on Tuesday filed a petition before the Court seeking to review the High Court judgments on the Coca-Cola issue.

In his petition, the secretary of the Forum, R. Gokul Prasad said that in the judgements directing the Perumatty grama panchayat to consider the application for renewing the licence of the Coca-Cola's Plachimada plant, a Division Bench had observed that there was no reference to any sample taken from the factory and that the objection regarding the pollution did not appear to be valid and even sustainable.

The petitioner who had been earlier impleaded in the Coca-Cola case as a respondent pointed out that there was indeed a test report on the samples taken from the Coca-cola and Pepsi plant.

The Palakkad Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, on a complaint, had directed that the sample of Coca-Cola and Pepsi manufacturers at the Plachimada and Kanjikkode factories be sent for analysis. The Forum had also directed Vimta Labs, Hyderabad to forward a complete report on the result of the test or analysis to find out whether the food samples had any defects and created health hazards due to the presence of any toxic material. The test report revealed that the samples contained nine heavy metals and 32 pesticides residues including the banned chemicals. He, therefore, pleaded that in the light of the test report, the Court's earlier judgement be reviewed.

Mr. Prasad filed another petition seeking a direction to the companies to stop manufacture, distribution and sale of the soft drinks manufactured by Pepsi and Coca-Cola in view of the Vimta Lab Report. The petition also sought a direction to the companies to reveal and disclose the names of all the constituents including heavy metals and state whether they were within the permissible limits or not.

Notification stayed

Justice K. K. Dinesan has stayed the notification issued by the KSRTC inviting applications for the posts of conductors in the KSRTC. The stay order came on a writ petition filed by Pradeep of Kollam. According to him, the KSRTC had no authority to invite applications directly from the candidates. It could make appointments only through the PSC or employment exchanges.

Invention

Justice K. Balakrishnan Nair has observed that if Mr. Thomas of Aroor filed a concrete proposal on his invention on Bomb Dissolving Crane, the State Government would render necessary assistance to him. The Court issued the order while disposing of his petition complaining that the Government had not taken any steps to assess the utility of the petitioners' invention.

CBI probe

Justice A.K. Basheer on Tuesday directed that the case relating to the murder of Wilson, Kanjikulam, Thiruvananthapuram be entrusted with the CBI. The order was passed on a writ petition filed by the widow of Wilson. He was found murdered in February 2004. Though the police arrested Wilfred, former Jail Superintendent, and Ronald, Karate instructor to police personnel, no headway was made in the investigation.

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