Do you have any policy against illegal mining, top court asks Modi govt

NEW DELHI : There is a virtual flood of litigations against illegal mining, the Supreme Court observed on Friday, asking the Centre if it has any policy that deals with the misuse of natural resources. “Illegal mining worth thousands of crores (of rupees) is going on in this country and the Centre has nothing to say,” a bench of justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta told additional solicitor general AS Nadkarni while hearing a case from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. Expressing anguish over the rampant misuse of mining leases by firms, the court said: “We know of cases from at least seven states that are pending before this bench. Don’t you have a policy on illegal mining?” When Nadkarni – appearing for the ministry of environment and forest (MOEF) – failed to offer an immediate response, the court gave him two weeks for filing an affidavit in this regard.

The additional solicitor general, however, did say that the onus of preventing a breach of mining lease lay on the state concerned. He submitted that the court had accepted the Justice MB Shah Commission report suggesting remedial measures to prevent

further illegal mining, and was taking action accordingly.

The assurance failed to placate the Supreme Court. “Then why do we still have these cases pending with us? You must take instructions. This is too much,” it said, asking the Centre to take up the issue with the states concerned.

Last August, the top court had come down heavily on illegal mining of manganese in Odisha – imposing a heavy penalty on 152 iron ore and manganese lessees. These mines were found to have conducted operations without forest and environment clearances between 2000 and 2011, sometimes even beyond the permitted area.

The court had said that extracting iron ore and manganese in violation of the Environment Impact Assessment notifications of 1994 or 2006 constitutes illegal mining, and compensation at 100% of the mineral’s price should be recovered from 2000-2001 onwards in accordance with the law. All mining projects having a lease area of five hectares or more were required to have an environment clearance with effect from September 14, 2006. This month, the top court cancelled 88 mining leases in Goa after ruling that the licences were accorded in violation of environmental rules.