NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has rejected the Goa government’s plea for hearing its review petition in open court against the judgment of February 7, 2018, shutting down the entire iron ore mining in the state since March 2018.
An open court hearing would have enabled the lawyers to pitch for the reversal of the verdict, but the review petitions were listed on Friday through circulation in the chambers of Justice Dhananjaya V Chandrachud, with no assistance from the lawyers.
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The review petitions by the Goa government and Vedanta Limited (formerly Sesa Sterlite Ltd) came up for consideration and a possible judgment in chamber by the Bench of Justice Chandrachud and Justice Mukesh Kumar Shah, as decided in the last hearing on February 10.
The judgment, if any, was not available immediately as the sources in the court registry said they had not received, until 8pm, any order passed by the Bench. Since the Bench was tied up with 30 other cases until afternoon, it may not have enough time to deal with the review petition to deliver the final decision, the sources said.
A Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta, both of whom have since retired, had quashed the second renewal of all 88 mining leases and directed the government to go for fresh leasing of the mines and allow their restart after completing environment and other mandatory clearances.
