Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has granted ad-interim relief in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Goa Foundation challenging the permits granted to Mineira Nationale Ltd for removal of 25 lakh tonnes of sub-grade materials from its former mining lease number 62/51 located at Cuddegal, Santona.
The Division Bench comprising of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice M S Jawalkar has stayed the operations with immediate effect. As per the complaint, a large number of complaints had been filed that minerals were being lifted out of the mining lease which belongs to Mineira National Ltd.
The firm has not operated the lease from 2012. However, in an application filed on January 11, 2021, the MNL asked the Directorate of Mines and Geology to grant it a permit to remove a total of 4.5 million tonnes of “earlier mined ore” mined prior to 2007 from its lease. In its application it claimed all 4.5 million tonnes were on the lease.
Petitioner Claude Alvares said that the department sent a site inspection team to examine the request and found 2.5 million tonnes of sub-grade ROM which, when analysed, showed a Fe content of 51per cent.
“Though the State government only took a Cabinet decision to allow extraction from old leases on February 23, 2021, it had already granted a permit to the MNL on February 1, 2021. On the very same date, the DMG had issued a public notice bringing to a halt all mining transportation pursuant to the order of the Supreme Court dated October 13, 2020 which had ruled that after January 31, 2021, all leases would be recovered from parties, including the ore within,” he said.
The Goa Foundation argued that no dump mining was permitted, since the Expert Committee’s report on dumping mining was still before the Supreme Court, and the Court was still to hear the matter. The site inspection report of the DMG clearly indicated that the permit was to remove the 2.5 million tonnes from Dump No 3.
The petitioners also argued that the MNL was being granted a permit to transport ore with a present value of Rs 230 crore all of which had to go to the State of Goa. Instead, it settled for a royalty of Rs 20 crore, willingly giving public money to the former lease-holder.
