Piramal Pharma moves SC against Gujarat pollution body’s plant closure order

The company also objects to a direction that allows a debt to be converted into cash. ₹15 lakh bank guarantee.

The plea is scheduled to be heard on February 9 before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant along with a bench led by Justices Joymalya Bagchi and NV Anjaria.

On February 5, the Gujarat high court refused to grant compensation to the Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company.

Piramal Pharma’s Dahej facility, located in the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation industrial area, is one of the company’s 10 manufacturing facilities in India and produces basic starting materials (KSMs) for complex hospital generics such as the inhaled anesthetic sevoflurane, forming part of the vertically integrated inhalation anesthesia chain completed at the Digwal facility.

The Dahej facility is a World Health Organization Good Manufacturing Practices (WHO-GMP) compliant manufacturing facility.

The financial and operational impact of the facility closure “cannot be determined at this time,” the company said in a stock exchange filing on Feb. 4.

Piramal’s complex hospital generics business has achieved: ₹1,948 crore in the first nine months of 2025-26, a marginal 1% increase year-on-year.

Conflict

The Gujarat Pollution Control Board’s action follows an incident involving alleged illegal dumping of hazardous waste.

The regulator said that on January 30, 2026, a tanker carrying spent hydrochloric acid left Piramal Pharma’s Dahej plant for delivery to an authorized waste treatment unit in Surendranagar district. While the journey normally takes five to six hours, villagers in Gandhinagar district allegedly saw the same tanker dumping chemical waste into the water canal in the early hours of January 31.

Based on local complaints, surveillance input and route data, the pollution board concluded that the tanker had deviated from the approved route. Holding Piramal Pharma responsible as the producer of the hazardous waste, the regulator initiated emergency action and issued a show-cause notice, followed by a closure order on February 3.

The board ordered an immediate halt to all production operations at the Dahej plant. It also directed the cessation of electricity and water supply except for limited use required for safe shutdown and banned the use of stationary power and diesel generator sets.

The pollution authority also asked the company for a ₹It gave a bank guarantee of ₹ 15 lakh for a year and warned that failure to comply could lead to penalties, including encashment of the guarantee.

The company challenged the closure order before the Gujarat high court, denying any allegation of illegal dumping of garbage. The company relied on GPS tracking data, including information available from the pollution board’s own monitoring system, to claim that the tanker was never found near the canal in Gandhinagar.

According to Piramal Pharma, the tanker stopped at Bagodara, which is on the approved route, as the driver stopped to rest.

The company also argued that it was not given a proper chance to explain its position and said shutting down the entire facility was excessive, especially when it came to the dump allegedly being handled by a third-party hauler.

On February 5, the Gujarat high court dismissed the petition, stating that the pollution board has the power to order immediate closure of cases involving serious risk of environmental damage.

The court said it could not examine disputed facts such as tanker movement in the writ petition and advised Piramal Pharma to approach the National Green Tribunal.