For the purpose of generating employment in Banaras, a leather industry is being started which consumes a large amount of water and discharges waste water containing putrescible organic and toxic inorganic materials into

The given case is similar to the case M.C. Mehta v. Union of India [AIR 1988 SC 1037] also known as the Kanpur Tanneries or Ganga Pollution case wherein the Supreme Court had held that- "Where in public interest litigation owners of some of the tanneries discharging effluents from their factories in Ganga and not setting up a primary treatment plant in spite of being asked to do so for several years did not care, in spite of notice to them, even to enter appearances in the Supreme Court to express their willingness to take appropriate steps to establish the pre-treatment plants it was held that so far as they were concerned on order directing them to stop working their tanneries should be passed. It was observed that the effluent discharged from a tannery is ten times noxious when compared with the domestic sewage water which flows into the river from any urban area on its bank. It was further observed that the financial capacity of the tanneries should be considered as irrelevant while requiring them to establish primary treatment plants. Just like an industry which cannot pay minimum wages to it worker cannot be allowed to exist, a tannery which cannot set up a primary treatment plant cannot be permitted to continue to be in existence for the adverse effect on the public at large which is likely to ensure by the discharging of the trade effluents from the tannery to the river Ganga would be immense and it will outweigh any inconvenience that may be caused to the management and the labour employed by it on account of its closure". Hence, looking to the judgement given by the Apex Court in the given case, the owners of tanneries cannot be allowed to pollute the water by producing the hazardous material irrespective of the fact that this being the employment generation activity.