the goan I network
PANAJI
The Goa government has approached the Supreme Court with a review petition seeking recall of its February 2018 order which cancelled 88 active mining leases, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced.
Sawant said the government was moved to file the review petition because it was “deeply concerned by the effects of mining closure.”
“Review petition against the Supreme Court judgment imposing mining ban in Goa has been filed by Goa government today. Although delayed, our faith in Nyay Devta (god of justice) remains strong. We are deeply concerned by the effects of mining closure on livelihoods of our people,” Sawant said.
“This major step is one of our many persistent attempts towards safeguarding interest of mining dependents and Goan economy,” he added.
In July while speaking in the Goa Legislative Assembly Sawant had promised that the State would file a review petition.
“We should have filed a review writ petition then itself. It was very important to file the review writ petition at that time immediately. There were many legal opinions at the time and the review writ petition was not filed at that time,” Sawant had said in July.
Mining is shut since March 15, 2015 after the Supreme Court, delivering its judgement on a petition filed by the Goa Foundation, ruled that the renewals of 88 mining leases was illegal and that the government should have granted fresh leases instead of renewals.
The Supreme Court in its order had ruled that “the second renewal of the mining leases granted by the State of Goa was unduly hasty, without taking all relevant material into consideration and ignoring available relevant material and therefore not in the interests of mineral development”.
“The State of Goa was obliged to grant fresh mining leases in accordance with law and not second renewals to the mining lease holders,” the SC ruled referring to its earlier judgement of April 2014 which had declared that Goa’s mining leases had expired in November 2007 and instead of being renewed, should have been granted afresh.
The Supreme Court had also opened the path for the government to grant fresh leases “as early as reasonably practicable” something the state government has been refusing to do since the process now involves an auction, a process the State government wants to avoid.
