law: Environment (Protection) Act, 1986  
  16. Offences by Companies
  
  (1) Where any offence under this Act has been
  
  committed by a company, every person who, at the time the offence was
  
  committed, was directly in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for
  
  the conduct of the business of the company, as well as the company, shall be
  
  deemed to be guilty of the offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against
  
  and punished accordingly :
  Provided  that nothing contained in this
  
  sub-section shall render any such person liable to any punishment provide in
  
  this Act, if he proves that the offence was committed without his knowledge or
  
  that he exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence.
  (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in
  
  sub-section (1), where an offence under this Act has been committed by a company
  
  and it is proved that the offence has been committed with the consent or
  
  connivance of, or is attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director,
  
  manager, secretary or other officer of the company, such director, manager,
  
  secretary or other officer shall also deemed to be guilty of that offence and
  
  shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
  
  EXPLANATION: For the purposes of this section -
  (a) "company" means any body
  
  corporate and includes a firm or other association of individuals;
  (b) "director", in relation to a firm, means a partner in the firm.