NAGPUR: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Thursday extended its ban for a week on entry of trucks/containers in Maharashtra carrying nearly 250 tonnes of toxic waste left behind after 1984 Bhopal gas catastrophe killing thousands. However, a division bench comprising justices Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Pramod Kode disposed of the petition filed by MLA Devendra Fadnavis and others granting liberty to the petitioners to approach the appropriate forum – Principal bench of MP high court in Jabalpur – where the case is pending and next hearing is scheduled on July 28.

Sudhir Paliwal of Vidarbha Environment Action Group and Rajiv Jagtap of Jan Manch were other petitioners. Senior counsel KH Deshpande appeared for the petitioners along with Anil Kilor and Akshay Sudame.

While maintaining its earlier orders of prohibiting entry of trucks/containers carrying toxic waste, the bench made it clear that there will be no contrary orders by different courts. This comes after Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) made it clear in an affidavit that it hadn’t received any application of granting no-objection certificate (NoC) from its counterpart in MP. The NoC from pollution control boards of both states is mandatory to dispose toxic waste as per Rule 20 (3) of Hazardous waste (Management, handling and trans boundary movement) rules 2008. The MPCB also informed that the DRDO has an incinerator facility near Indore to dispose such waste.