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File picture of Vedanta factory |
New Delhi, April 21: The Supreme Court today sought an explanation from the Union ministry of environment and forest on its decision to deny permission to mine the Niyamgiri hills for bauxite, despite the apex court’s clearance to do the same.
Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) was supposed to mine it jointly with Sterlite India, the Indian wing of Vedanta.
A two-judge bench, comprising Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik, also issued notices to the Orissa government and Sterlite asking them to place their views on OMC’s petition.
The court directed that the case be listed after all the pleadings were complete.
The order came after a very short hearing. The court first objected to OMC not correcting some procedural lapses in the petition, but said that it was issuing notices on the spot to all parties.
MoEF counsel Harris Beeran accepted the notice for the ministry. The Orissa government and Sterlite accepted the notice in the court.
Counsel for OMC, K.K. Venugopal, alleged that after the MoEF’s denial to mine the Niyamgiri hills for bauxite, Sterlite was not paying what it had been directed to pay the state under the conditional clearance by the Supreme Court.
Sterlite had been asked to deposit Rs 55 crore for wildlife and forest conservation and another Rs 10 crore every year for development of the area which falls in Kalahandi district.
Orissa Mining Corporation, the joint venture partner of Sterlite Industries, had on March 9 moved the top court against the MoEF’s decision to deny forest clearance to OMC to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills.
The MOEF move had hurt Vedanta’s plans to mine the hills, setting back its plans to start its refinery in the area. The company had then asked the state to allot it alternative mining sites, but that has so far not worked out.
The OMC owns the mines in the Niyamgiri hills.
Under the Supreme Court judgments of November 23, 2007, and August 8, 2008, Sterlite was permitted to mine the hills, despite local opposition to the multi-crore mining and refinery project, under stringent environmental safeguards.
The forest bench of the top court, which included Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia, denied Vedanta permission to mine and instead asked its Indian arm to do it so that the court could ensure that action could be taken to ensure that the company complied with the environmental standards.
The petition, filed through counsel T.S. Sudheer, said that despite the court clearance, the MoEF had virtually reopened the issue by overturning the clearance to it.
“The Supreme Court took into account ecological, environmental, wildlife and relief and rehabilitation measures for tribals before giving clearance to the project,” the petition said.
The ministry of environment and forests, the petition said, had followed the unique and unprecedented step of overturning a top court ruling.
The MoEF decision also affects the credibility of OMC and the investment climate in the state, the petition added. It urged the top court to set aside the MoEF order.
An MoEF panel had in August 2010 found Vedanta guilty of expanding its refinery without clearances and had shot down its mining plans.
The mining was to be done for the refinery. Vedanta had signed a deal with the Orissa government in 2003 for construction of an aluminium refinery, and proposed to extract 3 million tones of bauxite per annum from the Niyamgiri hilltop for transporation to the refinery at the base of the hill.
The project had been cleared by the SC despite local opposition from the Dongria Kondh tribe which holds the hills sacred. The MOEF had on Oct 21, 2010, asked Vedanta Aluminium to stop all its construction activities on the six-fold expansion of its refinery.