TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: The crucial Supreme Court hearing on the iron ore mining ban slapped in Goa on October 5, 2012 could not take place on Monday as Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar, one of the judges on the 3-judge Bench, was not available.
A brief notice on the Supreme Court declared that the special bench for forest matters that was to take up the Goa Foundation’s petition “stands adjourned,” with no new date fixed. All cases listed before another Bench headed by Justice Nijjar were also adjourned to Wednesday. The two other judges on the Forest Bench are Justices AK Patnaik and Fakkir Mohd Kalifulla.
Inquiries showed that a 6-member expert committee set up for the macro environmental impact assessment study also did not furnish its report despite the Court directing it in the last hearing on February 17 to submit it by March 15. The court was to also receive the 3-member monitoring committee report on the e-auctioning of the excavated iron ore by the Goa government.
Both committees were to submit their respective reports to the Court on February 15, but while the expert committee was allowed time up to March 15, the monitoring committee wriggled out on the ground that the e-auction was fixed on February 17 by the State government, which was also the date for the court hearing.
The court had rejected the expert committee’s plea for giving it three more months, pointing out that its report is needed urgently in view of the mining operations in Goa suspended by the court’s interim order. The committee had then stated that it is not in a position to suggest any level of annual capping and needs three more months to give the interim report.
In another hearing on January 6, the court had wanted the expert committee to meet on day-to-day basis. The committee headed by Delhi University’s ecologist Dr CR Babu, head of the Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, consists of geologist Dr SC Dhiman, former chairman of the Central Grounds Water Board, mineralogist Prof BK Mishra, Director of the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneshwar, forestry expert Prof S Parameswarappa of Karnaaka and one representative each of the Environment and Forests Ministry and Goa’s Department of Mines.
