Order

The appellants and others filed a writ petition in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana against the respondents. The case in the writ petition, briefly stated, was that the writ petitioners were owners of agricultural lands, residential buildings, tubewells, etc. at Gaddiwa­ra within the municipal limits of Panipat. The second respondent, the National Fertilizers Limited, had installed a plant for the manufac­ture of fertilisers in the vicinity. The second respondent had con­structed a ‘kucha’ bund around the original pond and was using it for dispositing effluents. The bund was made of earth which breached due to the excessive pressure of the effluents and the accumulation of burnt ash. The result was that water and ash had escaped from the pond and had damaged the writ petitioners standing crops, mango gardens and residential properties. There had been a loss of soil, from 6 inches to 2 feet, on their lands which had made them unfit for cultivation until such time as they were reclaimed. The second respondent had not done anything to redress the grievances of the writ petitioners. The writ petition, therefore, prayed for a direction to the second re­spondents to close its pl