PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has confirmed its order to stay the transportation of ore from Pissurlem mine that was being illegally transported earlier this year after observing that what was being transported and sold off as e-auctioned ore was in fact a dump, whose mining and transportation is banned by the Supreme Court.Hearing a petition filed by the Goa Foundation, the High Court also pulled up the Goa government for attempting to bypass the entire mechanism put in place by the Supreme Court with regard to the e-auction process.
The PIL challenged the e-auction of items listed under Serial No. 29 of the 27th e-auction conducted on January 19 by the Department of Mines and Geology, Goa, and the transport permits granted thereafter to transport mineral ores from the so-called mining dump on former mining lease with TC No.95/52 located at Pissurlem village.
The PIL alleged that the lease was affected by several illegalities. Large quantities of ore were declared removed from the lease and huge dumps created, when in actual fact no mining took place on the lease for more than two decades.
The High Court, after perusing documents and arguments placed before it, came to the prima finding that the company Vedanta Ltd, was trying to carry off ore that was a mining dump, which is banned by the Supreme Court, because it was the winning bidder of the e-auctioned ore.
Defending the government’s decision to allow the transport of the ore Advocate General Devidas Pangam told the court that the auction/sale/transportation, in this case, was not of any material from the mining dump but that this was iron ore with Fe content of 42% that was illegally extracted possibly from the mining lease adjacent to mining lease and later e-auctioned.
