Section 24: The Central Prohibition
Chapter Thirty
Syllabus topic 2, "Pollution of Water"
Pages 133 to 137 of 783
In one line
Nobody may knowingly cause or permit poisonous, noxious or polluting matter to enter a stream, well, sewer or land, and section 24 is the prohibition the whole Act exists to enforce.
In exam wording: section 24(1)(a) of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 provides that no person shall knowingly cause or permit any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, determined in accordance with such standards as may be laid down by the State Board, to enter, whether directly or indirectly, into any stream or well or sewer or on land, and clause (b) forbids knowingly causing or permitting to enter any stream any other matter which may tend to impede the proper flow of the water in a manner leading or likely to lead to a substantial aggravation of pollution due to other causes.
The provision
24. (1) Subject to the provisions of this section,
(a) no person shall knowingly cause or permit any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter determined in accordance with such standards as may be laid down by the State Board to enter (whether directly or indirectly) into any stream or well or sewer or on land; or
(b) no person shall knowingly cause or permit to enter into any stream any other matter which may tend, either directly or in combination with similar matters, to impede the proper flow of the water of the stream in a manner leading or likely to lead to a substantial aggravation of pollution due to other causes or of its consequences.
Broken down
Clause (a): the pollution prohibition
"No person". Not the occupier, not an industry. Any person.
"Knowingly cause or permit". Two verbs and one adverb, and each is worth a sentence.
Cause imports some positive act by the defendant. Permit imports knowledge that another is doing it and a failure to prevent it, and it is how an owner who lets a tenant discharge is reached.
Knowingly qualifies both. The prosecution must show that the defendant knew of the entry, or of the circumstances constituting it. It does not require him to know that the matter exceeded a standard, or that what he was doing was an offence.
"Poisonous, noxious or polluting matter". Three words, and the third is the wide one. Matter is polluting if it pollutes within section 2(e), which is the definition chapter.
"Determined in accordance with such standards as may be laid down by the State Board". This is the hinge of the section, and students miss it. Whether matter is poisonous, noxious or polluting is determined against a standard the State Board lays down under section 17(1)(g), (k) and (m). So the section does not prohibit discharge; it prohibits discharge of matter that fails the standard.
Section 24: The Central Prohibition
"To enter (whether directly or indirectly)". Seepage from a pit is entry, indirectly. So is a discharge into a drain that reaches the stream.
"Into any stream or well or sewer or on land". The words in brackets were substituted by amendment, and they matter. The original prohibition was about streams and wells. It now covers a sewer and land, which closes the obvious avoidance route of discharging onto the ground instead of into the water.
Clause (b): the obstruction prohibition
This one is about matter that is not itself polluting. It forbids knowingly causing or permitting to enter a stream any other matter which may tend, directly or in combination with similar matter, to impede the proper flow of the water in a manner leading or likely to lead to a substantial aggravation of pollution due to other causes.
The mischief is real and it is easy to state. Dumping rubble in a stream is not a discharge of polluting matter, but it slows the flow, and slower flow means less dilution, and less dilution means that somebody else's lawful discharge becomes a pollution problem. Clause (b) reaches the person who made the difference without discharging anything.
Note the two limits: the aggravation must be substantial, and it must be aggravation of pollution due to other causes.
The four exceptions in sub-section (2)
A person is not guilty by reason only of having done, or caused to be done, any of these.
(a) Permanent works he has a right to build. Constructing, improving or maintaining, in or across or on the bank or bed of a stream, any building, bridge, weir, dam, sluice, dock, pier, drain or sewer or other permanent works which he has a right to construct, improve or maintain.
(b) Reclamation and bank protection. Depositing materials on the bank or in the bed for reclaiming land, or for supporting, repairing or protecting the bank or bed, provided such materials are not capable of polluting the stream.
(c) Returning the stream's own deposit. Putting into a stream any sand, gravel or other natural deposit which has flowed from or been deposited by the current of that stream.
(d) Desilting with consent. Causing or permitting, with the consent of the State Board, the deposit accumulated in a well, pond or reservoir to enter a stream.
Read the pattern. Exception (a) protects lawful engineering. Exception (b) protects bank works, with an express condition that the material is not itself capable of polluting. Exception (c) is common sense: putting back what the stream brought. Exception (d) is the only one that requires the Board's consent, and it is the only one that permits genuinely dirty material to be released.
Section 24: The Central Prohibition
The words "by reason only of" are the limit on all four. A person who does one of these things andsomething else that offends the section is not protected.
Sub-section (3): exemption by notification
The State Government may, after consultation with or on the recommendation of the State Board, by notification exempt any person from sub-section (1), subject to conditions, and may alter, vary or amend the conditions by a like notification.
Three points. The power is the State Government's, not the Board's. The Board must be consulted or must recommend. And the exemption is from the prohibition itself, which makes it a large power exercised by notification.
A worked example
Vikas owns a plot beside a stream and leases part of it to a small unit run by Prakash. The unit discharges rinse water into a soak pit. Vikas knows this and says nothing. In the monsoon the pit overflows into the stream. Separately, Vikas has tipped construction rubble along the bank to stop it eroding.
Prakash. He causes the matter to enter the stream indirectly, through the pit and the overflow, and the words "whether directly or indirectly" cover it. Whether the rinse water is polluting matter is determined against the standard the State Board has laid down. If it fails the standard, clause (a) is contravened.
Vikas. He does not discharge anything. But he knows what his lessee is doing and does not prevent it, and permit with knowledge is the second verb in clause (a). He is within the prohibition.
The rubble. Depositing material on the bank for protecting the bank is exception (b), provided the material is not capable of polluting the stream. Clean rubble is protected. Demolition waste containing gypsum or paint is not, and the proviso is exactly where that argument is had. And if the rubble is enough to impede the proper flow so as to aggravate pollution from other discharges substantially, clause (b) of sub-section (1) is engaged, which no exception in sub-section (2) answers.
Nobody was harmed. Irrelevant. Section 24 is contravened by the entry of matter failing the standard, and the definition in section 2(e) works on what may or is likely to happen.
Distinctions
| Section 24 | Section 25 | |
|---|---|---|
| What it forbids | knowingly causing or permitting polluting matter to enter | establishing, altering an outlet or making a new discharge without consent |
| Standard | matter determined against the Board's standards | consent and its conditions |
| Fault | knowingly | none required; the act is establishing without consent |
| Exceptions | four, in sub-section (2) | exemption by Central Government notification |
What it does NOT mean
It does not forbid discharge. It forbids the entry of matter that is poisonous, noxious or polluting as determined against the Board's standards. A discharge within the standard is not within the prohibition.
Section 24: The Central Prohibition
It does not require intention to pollute. "Knowingly" attaches to causing or permitting the entry, not to an intention to cause harm or to a knowledge that a standard was exceeded.
It does not stop at water. The prohibition covers entry into a stream, a well, a sewer, or on land.
Exception (b) is not a licence to dump. It protects deposit for reclamation or bank protection only, and only where the material is not capable of polluting the stream.
Quick revision
- 24(1)(a): no person shall knowingly cause or permit any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, determined against the State Board's standards, to enter directly or indirectly into any stream or well or sewer or on land.
- 24(1)(b): no person shall knowingly cause or permit into a stream other matter tending to impede the proper flow so as to lead or be likely to lead to a substantial aggravation of pollution due to other causes.
- 24(2), four exceptions, all limited by "by reason only of": permanent works he has a right to build; deposit for reclamation or bank protection, if not capable of polluting; putting back the stream's own natural deposit; and desilting a well, pond or reservoir with the Board's consent.
- 24(3): the State Government may exempt a person by notification, after consulting or on the recommendation of the Board, subject to conditions.
Test yourself
1. What work does the phrase "determined in accordance with such standards as may be laid down by the State Board" do in section 24(1)(a)? It ties the prohibition to a standard. Without it the section would forbid the entry of anything poisonous, noxious or polluting, which would be unworkable because every discharge contains something. With it, the question in a prosecution becomes whether the matter fails the standard the Board has laid down under section 17, which is a measurable question and the reason the sampling procedure matters so much.
2. A landlord knows his tenant is discharging effluent and does nothing. Is he within section 24? Yes, on the word "permit". Clause (a) forbids knowingly causing or permitting the entry of the matter. Causing imports a positive act; permitting imports knowledge of what another is doing and a failure to prevent it. The landlord's knowledge and inaction are exactly what the second verb is for.
3. Explain clause (b) and why it is not a duplicate of clause (a). Clause (a) is about matter that is itself polluting. Clause (b) is about other matter, which is not polluting, entering a stream and tending to impede its proper flow so as to lead or be likely to lead to a substantial aggravation of pollution due to other causes. The mischief is that reducing the flow reduces dilution, so that discharges which were within tolerance become a problem. It catches the person who made the difference without discharging anything polluting.
Section 24: The Central Prohibition
4. Which of the four exceptions requires the Board's consent, and why that one? Exception (d), causing or permitting the deposit accumulated in a well, pond or reservoir to enter a stream. It is the only exception under which genuinely dirty material is deliberately released into the stream, so unlike lawful engineering works, bank protection with non-polluting material, or the return of the stream's own natural deposit, it is allowed only where the Board has consented and can attach terms.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.