PANJIM: January 12, 2015 was a manic Monday for Director Mines Prasanna Acharya. Working like Superman and against all odds, Acharya threw caution, norms and even perhaps the law to the winds by executing the renewals of 31 leases of which a chunk of 11 belonged to Sesa Resources Limited, the biggest daddy of them all. Meanwhile, the bunch of 31 leases whose renewals were executed on January 12, included those shadow managed and controlled by other giants (see chart for the full list).
When the Mines Dept became a friend in need of the mining companies and not the state the Narendra Modi cabinet met in January 5 to finalise the amendment to the MMDRA Act, commonly known as the mining ordinance (which has now became an act). The spirit of the ordinance was that mines would now be auctioned and not renewed. Those not already renewed would get time till March 2020 to operate but the ones with renewals executed would function till 2027, effectively giving leases declared illegal by the SC a full life of a second renewal. (This is explained in detail in the box to the left).
Between January 5 when the cabinet finalised the ordinance and January 12, when the gazette notification was issued, the Goa government affected renewals of 61 leases in an arbitrary and desperate manner under Section 8 iii of the earlier MMDR Act (pre ordinance), in a bulk deal, often issuing- as per whistleblowers of the Mines Department- absolute identical documents to ostensibly justify the renewal as mandated under the act and the Supreme Court order. (Section 8 iii was the clause under which the second renewal of mining leases could take place, a category most Goan leases fell under)
Of these as many as 31, the largest was done on January 12, the day the ordinance came into effect. Once it did, no new renewal executions were possible but yet the Goa government executed them. The government of Goa therefore did a double jeopardy. It did what is called insider trading of the sort of a criminal nature. With a senior cabinet minister Mr Parrikar in the meeting, the Goa government would not have been unaware of the decision, and also especially, with mining companies working their backroom channels with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Secondly, it pushed 31 leases to be renewed after the ordinance was effected taking the plea that a copy of the gazette notification was uploaded on the website on January 13
The mines ordinance obliterated the renewal clause in the MMDR Act, under Section 8 (iii) which permitted the second renewal of leases, with strict conditions. This simply meant that on that day the government could not have affected the renewals, allowing them to carry on mining for another 12 years, since the ordinance had come into effect. The ordinance was aimed at auctioning all eases whose terms, as set in the ordinance were over, so that the state would get best price for the ore.
The ordinance called the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) amendment ordinance, 2015, which came “into force at once” on Monday January 12, 2015. Section 8 of the act pertaining to renewals was replaced by a new section 8. Without getting into detailed technicalities, which will confuse the reader, what the new section did was lay out the terms for leases, whose terms were over and not renewed and those which were renewed. What the Goa Mines Department did was renew, in a rapid manner renew leases on the very day the ordinance came into force, pausing them into the renewed category, thereby giving them a new lease of life which benefited the mining giants for another 12 years. (2015- 2027). This is how:
a) Leases which have expired and not renewed would be “extended” to March 31, 202O – for five more years, “provided all terms and conditions of the lease were complied with. This clause would have applied to all leases if they were not renewed till Jan 12
b) Leases that were renewed before the ordinance came into effect would be extended upto the end of their renewal period. Since virtually all these leases were renewed with effect from 2007, these would get a new life till 2027. This clause finally applied since these Goa leases were renewed (including the 31 which were renewed on January 12, 2015) with effect from 2007 for twenty years they would be allowed to function till 2027.
Claude Alvares, Director Goa Foundation , the main petitioner in the mother case 435/1, which resulted in the halt of all mining on grounds of illegality says “Let us see if this absurdity can pass legal scrutiny. But it’s clear that in a manner most shameful, the act of effecting renewals after the ordinance has come into affect amounts to criminal misconduct and the mines director and secretary are liable for criminal prosecution.”
