Adani in court on reporting mistake

MINING giant Adani will front court today over allegations it provided “false or misleading information” in its annual return.

The Department of Environment and Science in July commenced proceedings against Adani for allegedly contravening the Environmental Protection Act relation to information within the mining giant’s 2017-18 annual return.

“The department alleges that Adani’s annual return contained false and misleading information about the disturbance already undertaken at the mine during the annual return period,” a DES spokesman said.

Adani acknowledged an administrative error occurred in its 2017-18 annual return where the mining giant did not include information on 5.8ha of land clearing that took place over three weeks from March 2 to April 9, 2018.

“The prosecution is proceeding despite the fact all relevant works were legal and fully complied with our project conditions, and despite there being no environmental harm,” an Adani spokeswoman said.

“Improvements to internal processes were introduced at the time the administrative error was discovered and reported by us to ensure paperwork errors of this nature are avoided in the future.

“We will continue to participate in the relevant legal processes required to resolve this matter.”

Activists from the Stop Adani group will hold a protest outside Brisbane Magistrates Court, where the case is being heard, from 9am.

According to Stop Adani more than 50 people including a water engineer will gather holding signs spelling out ‘Adani broke the law -AGAIN”.