Delhi HC issues notice to Centre on plea challenging mandatory BIS license for manufacturing PVC pipes
Jan 20, 2022
New Delhi [India], January 20 : The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Centre on a petition seeking direction to quash the Rule 2 (2) of the 'Lead Stabilizer in Polyvinyl Chloride Pipes and Fittings Rules, 2021' enacted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change through notification on March 30, 2021.
The Bench of Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh on Thursday sought response of Union of India, through the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Bureau of Indian Standards, Central Pollution Control Board and Haryana State Pollution Control Board and fixed the matter for February 28, 2022 for further hearing.
The Petitioner, PVC Pipe Manufacturers (Haryana) Association challenged legality, validity and proprietary of the "Lead Stabilizer in Polyvinyl Chloride Pipes and Fittings Rules, 2021" to the extent it mandates obtaining licence from Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for manufacturing "PVC" pipes and to mark the BIS 'Standard Mark' on all the PVC pipes.
Petitoner association through Advocate Rajshekhar Rao submitted that the said Impugned Rules, Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) illegally and arbitrarily made it mandatory for the manufacturers of PVC pipes to obtain a licence from BIS and to mark the BIS 'Standard Mark' on all the PVC pipes.
Plea filed through Advocates Animesh Kumar, Nishant Kumar, Utkarsh Sharma and Shweta Singh stated that there are several PVC products that are required for plumbing work but are not covered under any of the BIS's standards. Such non-standard items do not have any replacement. Therefore, the complete construction sector will come into stand still if only the products with ISI Standard marking are allowed to be produced.
In order to obtain BIS Certification, the PVC pipe manufacturers are not only required to comply with the prescribed lead standards, but also with certain other standards which are mandatory to ensure the quality of the product required to use Indian Standards Institutes ("ISI") mark which are not at all related to the lead content in the product.
In doing so, the PVC pipes manufacturers are required to produce ISI grade pipes which can only be done by upgrading their plants and machinery for which the manufacturing units would need a massive capital investment worth crore of rupees. As such, in order to obtain BIS license, the PVC manufacturers are required to have lab, infrastructure as well as additional working personnel, plea further read.
