Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Goa government has at last moved the Supreme Court to tag its last November’s review petition with the mining firms’ cases coming up on Wednesday for hearing.
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The review petition to reconsider the SC’s judgment in February 2018 shutting down all mines in the State is placed before a two-judge Bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and K M Joseph for hearing on Wednesday, along with the petitions of Vedanta Limited and other assorted mining firms.
Goa’s Advocate General Devidas Pangam had tried to plead clubbing of the review petition also in the last hearing on August 18, but a 3-judge Bench of Justices Chandrachud, Joseph and Ms Indu Malhotra told him to follow the procedure of coming through the registry and not try to interject new material in the cases pending before it.
Justice Chandrachud had stressed last time that his Bench could take up the review petition only if directed by the Chief Justice of India, who alone has the administrative powers to do so as no Bench can entertain any new material on its own.
The Goa government’s advocate-on-record Ms Mukti Chowdhary filed an application on August 17 for tagging the Review Petition D.No. 41515 of 2019 in SLP (Civil) No. 32138 of 2015 with SLP (C) No. 29211 of 2019 & Writ Petition No. 21 of 2020, according to a report of the Registry to the court.
A question will arise why the review petition was filed after 21 months of the judgment and why the Goa government did not press for listing it even after filing it in November last year.
For reasons best known to the Goa government, it did not follow the Apex Court 2018 verdict, directing it to auction the mines afresh and secure the environment clearance to restart them as it would have enabled resumption of the mining that year itself instead of wasting two mining years with no certainty even in the third mining year that begins next month.
One Sanjit Dessai has also moved the Court to allow him to appear in person and argue the matter through e-filing. Also filed is an application on Friday by Advocate Vanita Bhargava to intervene.
Another advocate Vikalp Mudgal also filed a compilation of 494 pages last Thursday through e-filing, on behalf of the intervention by 26 villages adversely hit by the closure of the mining activities and pleaded resumption of the mining at the earliest as the livelihood of the people of these villages is dependent on mining that is lying closed for over two years. Their case was argued on August 18 by senior advocate Vikas Singh while senior advocate Harish Salve is appearing for Vedanta, along with senior advocate Krishnan Venugopal. B Vijayalakshmi Menon also filed a convenience compilation on behalf of the petitioners on Tuesday.
