TEAM HERALD
PANJIM/ NEW DELHI: In what was widely expected, the Claude Alvares led NGO, Goa Foundation, has moved the Supreme Court to stay the execution of the renewals of 27 mining leases as directed by the High Court. The petition seeks to highlight that the High Court order, was bad in law and sought to lower the majesty of the Supreme Court, which had issued a series of seven directions as conditions for mining activity to resume in its order of April 21. It has termed the High Court direction as that of “judicial overreach”.
The High Court in its order of August 13, had said that the state government renew all the leases for which stamp duty had been paid.
It also seeks to put the state government in a spot for not moving the apex court in an appeal against the High Court order, since the government had clearly taken a stand that it would comply with the Supreme Court’s directions, and the HC order of August 13, “disembodies the directions issued by this Hon Court and introduces chaos in the proposed scheme of legal and environmentally appropriate mining in Goa laid down by the Supreme Court.”
The counsel for Goa Foundation Prashant Bhushan outlined that the High Court was “cautioned” by the state of Goa that it was still in the process of complying with the directions of the Supreme Court in Writ petition 435 of 2014 and that the counter filed by the state government “squarely informed the High Court that the prayers go contrary” to the Supreme Court judgment.
The special leave petition that is to come up for hearing on the coming Monday has also asked that the state government and the Mines Department be restrained from executing any actions on mining companies or individuals without the prior approval of the apex court.
One of the arguments put forth by the petitioners was that the High Court had failed to “appreciate” the sum and substance of the order passed by the apex court and that its order would undermine or “render ineffective” the directions given in the judgment dated 2I/44/2014 in writ petition No. 435 of 2012.
The petitioners also argued that the High Court had failed to appreciate that the petitioners did not have any locus standi in the issue given that the Supreme Court had decided that as of 2007 all the leases were invalid. And that they did not have locus standi to pay the stamp duty as this came under section of the MMDR Act and so were de facto cancelled by the Supreme Court order.
Another argument put forth was that the High Court had failed to appreciate that the writ petition that had been deposed of on merits by the Supreme Court was kept alive in order that expert committees be set up in respect of auction of illegally extracted ores, management plan for mining dumps, and a final cap on iron ore production in the State.
“The petition will come for further directions in April 2015,” says the petition, adding that the respondent No 1 ought to have been directed instead to approach the apex court.
