Shape up or ship out, CJP warns water companies

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday told the bottled water companies to stop deceiving the people or be ready to face closure of their industry.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar resumed hearing a suo motu case pertaining to the exploitation of water resources by bottled water companies. The CJ remarked that the court has no soft corner for the companies as they are cheating the nation and they have to improve their functioning. He said: "We cannot let our children drink this water as these companies would turn our country into Ethiopia. People should boycott to drink mineral water.”

Meanwhile, amicus curiae, a water technologist, Professor Dr Ahsan Siddiqui informed the bench that bottled water companies are lying when they claim adding minerals to the water extracted from underground as minerals occur naturally in water. He added that these water companies replace the natural minerals with artificial minerals.

The expert said these companies use 7.5 billion litres of groundwater monthly, and 1.5 billion litres of polluted water is released back into the underground. The court was further told that the expired chemicals are being used to test the water.

To this, the Chief Justice remarked that these companies would have to pay billions of rupees for the water they have extracted from the underground. If they start to pay the taxes on their use of the water, then the dam fund would not need money from anyone else, the CJ observed.

The Chief Justice then warned the companies to improve their working within a week, or else they would be shut down.