History on her deck, Blue Lady is heading for Gujarat graveyard

The 46,000 tonnes of steel in the ship—it is expected to be in Indian waters next week—will revive his sagging ship-breaking business, he said. “When the controversy broke, my negotiation with the ship owner was at a very advanced stage and I could not back out,’’ Reniwal, owner of Mumbai-based Haryana Group of Industries, told The Sunday Express.

Reniwal’s group is a veteran in the ship-breaking business but its two yards at Alang have been vacant for the last two years. It’s not surprising that he did not know what he was buying: Shipbreaking business has a host of middlemen and ‘‘cash-buyers’’ with unknown antecedents.

Reniwal told the court panel, he has an agreement with the Gujarat-based Luthra group to clean the ship of toxins once it docks at Alang. This is the same group which had signed up to clean Clemenceau.

The SC-appointed Technical Committee has called the Gujarat Maritime Board, Gujarat Pollution Control Board and the Customs department to submit their reports to a vacation bench of the Supreme Court next week.

–sonujain@expressindia.com