JUDGMENT

Thomas, J.-River "Gomati" is a tributary of Ganga. It is a bane that almost all rivers in India are now saturated with pollutants and the holy river is not spared from that malady. What causes greater concern to those for whom rivers flowed sanctified waters, and to those, for whom rivers supplied potable water, is the frightening gallop of pollution level in recent decades. The measures evolved by the Parliament to control the escalating poisoning of our streams have not yielded the desired results due to a variety of causes. The present is a case in which the trade effluents discharged by an industrial unit of a premier liquor processing company made the water in Gomati more polluted to impermissible levels. So that State Pollution Control Board (`the Board for short) initiated proceedings for prosecuting M/s. Mohan Meakins Limited and its Directors way back in 1983. Alas, the canoe remains at the starting point itself in spite of lapse of long seventeen years till now.

2. Though the trial Court issued process against the accused at the first instance, they desired the trial Court to discharge them without even making their first appearance in the court. When the attempt