China's Supreme Court is not giving second chances. 

The country's top court has rejected the appeal for a new hearing of a company involved in one of the biggest environmental public interest case.

Jinhui, a shipping company based in Jiangsu province's Taizhou, and five other firms, were slapped with a ¥160 million ($25 million) fine for damaging the environment. However, Jinhui's lawyer Zhao Bing said that the fine was too much to rebuild the damages.

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A lawsuit filed by the Taizhou City Environmental Protction Association in 2014 said the six companies sold 25,000 metric tons of waste acids to a company that did not have a permit to release the waste material into the rivers.

Zhao argued that the rivers can purify the pollutants naturally. 

"Although the rivers can self-purify such a discharge, it still damaged the surrounding environment," case judge Lin Wenxue said. 

"My client just sold the acids under a contract signed with the Jiangzhong company that was in charge of dealing with the waste, and did not discharge the acids itself," Zhao said.  

The Supreme Court, standing by its original ruling, said that Jinhui "should be obligated to pay attention to such a contract involving dangerous acids and also has responsibility for the discharge." 

According to an environmental law professor from Wuhan University, the public hearing showed that the Chinese judicial bodies played their role in environmental protection, especially with the swift action on the case. Just a month after the the Taizhou City Environmental Protction Association filed the complaint, the local intermediate people's court ordered the companies involved to pay the penalty. 

TagsChina supreme court, Jinhui company, environmental public interest case