The petition filed by activist Sudip Tamankar against the state government, Directorate of Mines and Geology and mining companies alludes to the Supreme Court judgement in the 2G matter saying that the order was based on Article 39B of the Constitution of India.
Article 39 B says that the government should go for auctioning natural resources. Based on this the apex court has given directions in the 2G matter saying that air, water and land are natural resources and should be auctioned for maintaining transparency in the process.
According to the petition, the leases were given for 20 years. Under Section 8/1 of the MMDR Act the leases can be given for 10 years, under 8/2 for another 10 years and if they have to be given under 8/3 then the government has to form and give an opinion. It is only after this is recorded, that the leases can be granted under Section 8/3.
However, according to the petition, once the initial period was over some of the companies did not apply for renewal and were operating under deemed renewal clause, before the SC declared all these leases operating on deemed renewal after 2007 as illegal.
The petition asks–if the leases did not actually exist, then how can stamp duty be collected?
The petition also alleged that when the matter was put before the High Court, the government did not place before the court proper facts and had indirectly helped these companies.
