The Gauhati High Court has set aside an Assam Pollution Control Board decision reviving an expired provisional consent for a petroleum-coke unit at Amingaon. Finding no legal authority for treating a fresh application as an extension of the old permission, the Court imposed ₹1 lakh costs on the Board. Its order takes effect on 10 December 2026.
Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has allowed an environmental public interest petition challenging the revival of a lapsed provisional consent for a Calcined Petroleum Coke unit, holding that the regulator could not turn an application for fresh consent into an extension without legal authority [NOC Foundation v. The State of Assam and Others].
Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Pranjal Das delivered the judgment on 11 November 2026. The bench quashed the Board’s letter of 31 December 2022 concerning M/s M M Carbon Products Pvt. Ltd.’s unit at the Export Promotion Industrial Park, Amingaon, and directed consequential action by the Environment and Forest Department and the Board.
An expired permission and a fresh application
The dispute concerned a provisional consent issued on 10 December 2012. The Board acknowledged that its validity ended on 9 December 2013 and that the company had not commenced operations within that year. The company subsequently sought consent through applications in 2019 and 2021.
The company argued that it had pursued its application diligently and that administrative delays, including migration to a different online portal, explained the sequence of applications. It also relied on changes to notifications governing petroleum coke. Those submissions did not answer the Court’s central concern: the legal basis for reviving the expired provisional permission.
No authority shown for converting the application
In paragraph 11, the bench distinguished a Provisional Consent to Establish from a Consent to Establish. It found no document showing that the former had been converted into the latter, and no provision of an Act, rule or notification authorising the Board to treat the fresh application as one extending the expired permission.
The Court also questioned the online acknowledgements relied upon in the case, including missing dates and an identification number referring to an earlier year. It expressly confined those observations to this dispute and said they should not prejudice other applications.
The bench separately rejected objections to the NGO’s standing and disclosures. It accepted the pleaded sources of documents where their authenticity was not disputed, and found that sponsorship from Indian Oil Corporation did not, on the material before it, invalidate the PIL. The absence of the NGO’s activities within Assam was also not shown to be a legal bar to raising this environmental issue.
Costs, consequential action and the effective date
Paragraph 19 directs the Board to deposit ₹1 lakh with the Women and Child Development Department for facilities for girls with disabilities in care homes in remote districts lacking adequate facilities. The State may, if advised, recover that amount from officials found responsible.
The relief is not immediately operative. Paragraph 19(e) expressly fixes 10 December 2026 as the effective date. The judgment requires the authorities to make the consequences of quashing the consent-extension letter effective; it should not be read as an immediate closure direction taking effect on the day of pronouncement.
The decision draws a practical distinction between processing a valid fresh application and reviving a permission that has already expired. The Court held that the existence of the application did not itself supply the missing authority to extend the earlier provisional consent.
Case: NOC Foundation v. The State of Assam and Others
Number: PIL No. 32/2023
Citation: 2026:GAU-AS:16525-DB
Court and bench: Gauhati High Court; Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Pranjal Das
Decision: 11 November 2026
Outcome: PIL allowed to the extent specified; consent-extension letter quashed, consequential action and costs directed; order effective from 10 December 2026.
