The Gauhati High Court on Thursday set a deadline for Assam director general of police (DGP) and principal secretary of the state home department to file a detailed affidavit on the steps taken “for closure of all illegal mining” in the Dehing-Patkai belt.
If the officials fail to do so, their personal appearance will be required the next day, the order said.
A division bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Malasri Nandi ordered the filing of the affidavit on February 13 over non-compliance of the court’s orders passed in 2023 and 2024 in connection with two PILs filed in 2020 and 2022.
The PILs challenged the diversion of 98.59 hectare of forest land in Saleki Proposed Reserve Forest for open cast mining, among others, and issues related to alleged “illegal coal mining operations by the Coal India Ltd (CIL)”, also in Upper Assam’s
Dehing-Patkai area.
The Centre, in its response, had claimed the CIL “had stopped its mining activities in the reserve forest area and the mining activities are now been carried on by some
other entities”.
