PANJIM: Reacting sharply to the opportunism showed by some quarters to take credit for the resumption of mining activities in the State, RTI activist Sudip Tamankar said that credit to resume mining through e-auction should go to the NGO Goa Foundation and him.
Speaking to reporters, Tamankar said that it was Goa Foundation and him who had filed petitions before Supreme Court as the State government was desperate to reallot leases to former lease holders.
He stated that the then Advocate General Atmaram Nadkarni had advised the State government to mandatorily auction mining leases as per the 2014 Policy. But the BJP government then ignored the advice and hastily renewed 88 mining leases only to benefit the private mining lease holders.
“When we found that the government is giving mining leases illegally and trying to cause loss to the State exchequer, we filed writ petitions before the High Court of Bombay at Goa challenging the government’s decision to renew 88 mining leases,” he said adding that since the State government delayed in filing its reply they withdrew their petitions and approached the Supreme Court on September 22, 2015.
After hearing the matter for three and half years, the Apex Court Bench comprising Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta by an order dated February 7, 2018 quashed the second renewal of 88 mining leases holding that it was to ‘benefit the mining lease holders’ by sacrificing the State revenues.
The Court further asked the lease holders to vacate their leases areas. The government was asked to identify mining blocks and to auction them.
But some of the mining companies filed a petition making Directorate of Mines and Geology as the respondent and without making both – the Goa foundation and Tamankar as parties.
