Section 45E: The One Water Act Offence That Survives

In one line

Operating without consent is still a crime, and so is refusing to pay when the price has been set.

In exam wording: section 45E of the Water Act, inserted by the Amendment Act of 2024, creates the offences that survived decriminalisation; sub-section (1) punishes failure to comply with section 25 or section 26 with imprisonment of not less than one year and six months extending to six years and with fine; sub-section (2) escalates that where the failure continues beyond a year after conviction; sub-section (3) punishes failure to pay a penalty within ninety days; and sub-sections (4) and (5) carry the company and director liability that section 47 used to hold.

Sub-section (1): operating without consent

The conduct. Failure to comply with the provisions of section 25 or section 26.

Section 25 requires the previous consent of the State Board to establish or take steps to establish any industry, operation or process, or any treatment and disposal system, likely to discharge sewage or trade effluent into a stream, well, sewer or on land; and to bring into use any new or altered outlet for such a discharge; and to begin to make any new discharge.

Section 26 applies the same requirement to a person who was already discharging when the Act came into force in that area.

The punishment. In respect of each such failure, imprisonment for a term not less than one year and six months and extending to six years, and with fine; and where the failure continues, an additional fine which may extend to fifty thousand rupees for every day during which it continues after the conviction for the first such failure.

Notice the three components: a mandatory minimum term, an obligatory fine, and a daily fine that runs only after conviction. This is not a light provision. Six years is a serious sentence, and the minimum removes the court's power to be lenient absent a special provision.

Sub-section (2): the escalation

If the failure continues beyond a period of one year after the date of conviction, the offender is punishable with imprisonment for a term not less than two years extending to seven years and with fine.

Read it with sub-section (1) and the scheme is: eighteen months to six years for the failure; a daily fine of up to fifty thousand for continuing after conviction; and, if it is still continuing a year after conviction, a fresh and heavier offence of two to seven years.

Sub-section (3): not paying

Where a person fails to pay the penalty or additional penalty imposed under the Act within ninety days of its imposition, he is punishable with imprisonment which may extend to three years, or with fine which may extend to twice the amount of the penalty or additional penalty imposed, or with both.