SC hearing on mining now in mid-July
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 08 May 2013 18:19 IST
The hearing in Supreme Court on mining ban has been now postponed till second week of July, with no relief of any kind being granted in today’s hearing.
The issue of mining ban would thus be now not decided at least for two more months.
As scheduled, the matter of Goa’s mining ban came up for hearing today afternoon, but was heard only for 45 minutes.
The counsels of mine owners like Sesa Goa as well as truck owners and couple of village panchayats made a plea to grant relief and allow them to lift the mining dumps lying at different jetties, in view of upcoming monsoons.
The newly constituted forest bench of the Supreme Court however said they would not like to deliver any decision before studying the whole issue.
The newly constituted bench has only Justice Ranjan Gogoi from the old bench.
Justice T S Thakkar and Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar are the two new members of the newly constituted forest bench.
Today was the first sitting of the newly constituted forest bench.
Sources disclosed to goanews.com that there was no plea made to conduct hearings during vacation, in view of the socio-economic crisis being created due to mining ban in Goa.
The Goa Mining People’s Front had yesterday requested Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to request the apex court to hear the mining case during vacation.
After the Supreme Court banned all operations of mining on 5 October last year, the actual hearing of the matter had started today.
Meanwhile, the case had come up twice in between – on 7 December last year when interim report of the Centrally Empowered Committee was accepted and on 21 January, when Goa government was granted extension in filing its affidavit.
Goa Foundation has filed the petition against MoEF, Goa Government, Union Ministry of Mines, Indian Bureau of Mines as well as Goa State Pollution Control Board.
There have been intervention applications then filed by the mining companies, truck owners as well as village panchayats.
