JUDGMENT

S. H. Kapadia, CJI

Facts

1. Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd. (‘LSCL’ for short) is a company incorporated under the laws of Bangladesh. It has set up a cross-border cement manufacturing project at Chhatak in Bangladesh, which inter-alia has a captive limestone mine of 100Ha located at Phlangkaruh, Nongtrai, East Khasi Hills District in the State of Meghalaya. The mine is leased out in favour of Lafarge Umium Mining Pvt. Ltd. (‘LUMPL’ for short), which is an incorporated company under the Indian Companies Act, 1956 and which is a wholly owned subsidiary of LSCL. The entire produce of the said mine is used for production of cement at the manufacturing plant at Chhatak, Bangladesh under the agreement/arrangement between Government of India and Government of Bangladesh. There is no other source of limestone for LSCL except for the captive limestone mine situated at Nongtrai, East Khasi Hills District in the State of Meghalaya. The limestone as mined by LUMPL is conveyed from the mine situated at Nongtrai after crushing in a crusher plant. The limestone mined is conveyed by a conveyor belt to LSCL plant in Bangladesh.

2. The National Forest Policy, 1988 stood enunciated pursuant to