SATURDAY, MAY 04, 2024
Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on seven mining firms of Goa seeking extension of the time granted by it on January 30 to transport already legally extracted iron ore from the mining areas within six months.
Appearing for Chowgule and Company Private Limited, former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said his firm could not remove the ore in the time period given by the court, first because of the Covid-induced lockdown and then the rains that are still continuing. He said this was also the case of other mining firms.
Other firms which had moved the miscellaneous applications for extension of the time period include V M Salgaocar and Brother Pvt Ltd, Agarwal Minerals (Goa) Private limited andMinesccape and Kadar Ores Pvt Ltd.
In an argument between Rohatgi and NGO Goa Foundation’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Chief Justice of India, Sharad Arvind Bobde quipped that the extracted ore has to be moved out since it cannot be put back in the earth. Bhushan said the firms can remove only that ore for which it had already paid the royalty and the law is clear that any extracted ore not taken out within six months becomes property of the government.
When Bhushan said there was no guarantee that the ore was extracted even beyond March 15, 2018, the deadline set by the Apex Court, and the firms want to move it under the garb of the legally extracted ore still lying in mining areas, Goa Advocate General Devidas Pangam, who appeared along with three lawyers, said the State government has all the entries to show the status of the extracted ore.
In a brief order, the Bench held: ‘Arguments concluded. Orders reserved.”
The order could be pronounced either on Wednesday or the next Monday at the earliest as the CJI sits only on the alternate days.
Meanwhile, the case before the Apex Court had nothing to do with the mining firms wanting reversal of the February 2018 verdict cancelling all 88 mining leases in Goa, nor did it have anything to do with the Goa government’s review petition since these have been assigned to a separate Bench headed by Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud, which has fixed the next hearing only on November 2. The petition of 26 Panchayats, filed in August, as affected parties is also to come up before Justice Chandrachud and not before the CJI’s court.
