Delhi HC seeks Centre's reply on LG, Samsung plea against electronic waste management policy hike
The
Delhi High Court
on Tuesday sought a response from the Centre on various petitions filed by electronic manufacturers, including
LG Electronics India
and
Samsung India Electronics
, challenging the
electronic waste management policy
that increased payouts to
electronic-waste recyclers
.
As new rules mandate a minimum payment of Rs 22 per kg to recycle consumer electronics, the companies claim that it will triple their costs and benefit recyclers at their expense as the new prices were 5-15 times higher than the current prices.
A division bench led by chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya issued notice to the Environment ministry on the petitions seeking setting aside of the electronic waste management rules which increased payouts to electronic-waste recyclers among other issues. The court will further hear the matter on May 16.
Stating that the proposed rates were 'very high and should be reduced' and the government should let market forces determine the prices, counsel Vanita Bhargava told the court that the 2024 amendments in
E-waste Management Rules
2022, the Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016, and the Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022 fixing the floor price and the ceiling price for the exchange of EPR certificate were 'manifestly arbitrary and violative of Article 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India and are ultra vires provisions of EP Act under which the Rules were framed.
Instead of enforcing provisions of the EWM Rules, 2022 to monitor and check informal recyclers from processing in an environmentally unsound manner, the burden is being shifted to the producers without any cogent basis, she argued.
Rules 15(9) and 15(10) of the amended E-waste Management Rules establish a mechanism for producers to fulfil their
extended producer responsibility
obligations through the purchase and sale of certificates, with the Central Pollution Control Board ensuring that the value of these certificates reflects the environmental impact of e-waste management.
Samsung also said that 'the regulation of prices does not inherently serve the purposes of
environmental protection
,' and this was 'expected to cause substantial financial impact'.
LG in its petition stated that the government, through amendments, introduced a floor price and the ceiling price for the exchange of the extended producer responsibility certificates, and further, erroneously linked the exchange price of these certificates to the environmental compensation which was to be levied only in the event of a default by a producer. The rules "fail to take into consideration that merely by fleecing companies and taxing them in the name of the '
polluter pays principle
', the (government) objectives sought to be achieved cannot be achieved," the companies said.
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