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2017 Supreme(SC) 1198

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Ranjan Gogoi, Abhay Manohar Sapre and Navin Sinha, JJ.
Samaj Parivartana Samudaya & Ors. – Appellants
Versus
State of Karnataka & Ors. – Respondents
Interlocutory Application Nos. 270, 271, 273, 56562, 76163, 76167 and 103342 In Writ Petition (C) NO. 562 of 2009
Decided On : 14-12-2017

Advocates Appeared:
For the Appearing Parties : Prashant Bhushan, Ms. Aparna Bhat, Prakash Kumar Singh, P. S. Sudheer, Ninad Laud, Jayant Mohan, Anjuman Tripathy, (for Lex Regis Law Offices), Vikas Mehta, Ms. Uttara Babbar, Sushil Balwada, Sridhar Potaraju, Snehasish Mukherjee, Shailesh Madiyal, Senthil Jagadeesan, Samir Ali Khan, Ms. Ranjeeta Rohatgi, Rakesh K. Sharma, Rajesh Mahale, Rajeev Maheshwaranand Roy, Prashant Kumar, P. V. Dinesh, O. P. Bhadani, Neeraj Shekhar, Naveen R. Nath, Munawwar Naseem, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Merusagar Samantaray, Ms. Manjula Gupta, Kunal Verma, Aditya Narain, Rohit Sharma, Mohit Kumar Aneja, Kumar Dushyant Singh, (for M/s Karanjawala & Co.), T.N. Rama Rao, Hitesh Kumar Sharma, T. Veera Reddy, G. N. Reddy, Dinesh Kumar Garg, Chandra Prakash, Kunal Chatterji, Chanchal Kumar Ganguli, Bhargava V. Desai, Balaji Srinivasan, Ms. Vaishnavi Subrahmanyam, Ms. Pratiksha Mishra, Arunava Mukherjee, Abhishek Bharti, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Ankur S. Kulkarni, Ms. Anjani Aiyagari, Ms. Anitha Shenoy, Aniruddha P. Mayee, Anil Kumar Mishra-I, Ms. Anil Katiyar, Akhil Anand, Adarsh Upadhyay, Advs.
For the Sandur I & M : Fali S. Nariman, Sr. Adv., Sunil Dogra, Vivek Vishnoi, Abhishek Sharma, Ms. A. Sumathi, Krishnan Venugopal, Sr. Adv., Uday Tiwari, A. Raghunath, Ms. M.G. Yogamaya, Ms. Vaijayanthi Girish, Ms. Sudha Gupta, (for M/s Parekh & Co.), Ms. Kirti Renu Mishra, (for M/s Khaitan & Co.), (for M/s Ap & J Chambers), Gurmeet Singh Makker, Advs.
For the State of Rajasthan :S.S. Shamshery, AAG, Rajasthan, Amit Sharma, Ankit Raj, Ms. Indira Bhakar, Ms. Ruchi Kohli, Advocates.
For the NMDC Ltd. :- Kailash Pandey, Ranjeet Singh, Gaichangpou Gangmei, Baij Nath Patel, Ms. Sweta, Ms. Romila, Prakash Kumar, Advs.

IMPORTANT POINT
Fixing a cap upon extraction of mineral ore is the business of the Executive branch of the Central Government and not of Supreme Court. Yet, in absence of any control or effective regulatory measures as to the maximum output Court has to give directions.

Headnote:Natural resources – Exploitation of – Mining of iron ores in Karnataka – Supreme Court fixing mining caps in absence of any control or effective regulatory measures as to the maximum output – CEC recommending enhancement of caps in view of changed situations like improved infrastructures, re-assessment of reserves and formulation of R&R plans – Recommendations for category A and B mines in 3 districts of Bellary, Tumkur and Chitradurga accepted – All pending proposals for enhancement of MPAP directed to be decided without delay – Further directions given for category C mines. (Para 16, 17)
       (2017) 9 SCC 499 – Referred
       Facts of the case:
       In Writ Petition (C) No. 562 of 2009 "Samaj Parivartana Samudaya & Ors. v. State of Karnataka & Ors.", an absolute ban on mining activities in three districts of Karnataka, i.e, Bellary, Chitradurga and Tumkur was imposed by Supreme Court by Orders dated 29.07.2011 and 26.08.2011. However, to ensure that a minimum quantity of iron ore is available, through permissible and legal mining, by Order dated 5.08.2011, a public sector lessee, namely, M/s National Mineral Development Corporation was permitted to extract iron ore to the tune of 12 Million Metric Tonne per year. Thereafter, by Order dated 13.04.2012, the Court accepted the recommendations of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education and fixed a ceiling of 25 MMT as the maximum production of iron ore from all the mining leases in the district of Bellary and 5 MMT in respect of the mining leases in the districts of Chitradurga and Tumkur. By Orders dated 3.09.2012 and 28.09.2012, the Court permitted resumption of mining activities in Karnataka in a limited manner by permitting 18 and 63 leases in Categories 'A' and 'B' respectively to resume their activities subject to strict observance of the Reclamation and Rehabilitation Plan in respect of each of the leases as approved by the Monitoring Committee.
       M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. resumed the mining operations. The Monitoring Committee had fixed MPAP of M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. at 0.74 MMT and M/s MSPL Ltd. at 0.91 MMT respectively. Thereafter, the Central Empowered Committee by Order dated 18.03.2016 recommended the enhancement of MPAP of M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. to 1.60 MMT and that of M/s MSPL Ltd. to the tune of 1.80 MMT. The said recommendation of the CEC was approved by the Monitoring Committee.
       M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. have not been fully able to exploit and operate to the extent of their approved MPAP of 1.60 MMT and 1.80 MMT respectively on account of the two orders of the Court. The first is dated 5.08.2011 by which the NMDC was permitted to extract iron ore to the tune of 12 MMT per year. As the NMDC was not able to do so, by Order dated 1.09.2014 the Court permitted another public sector lessee M/s Mysuru Minerals Ltd. to make good the shortfall of NMDC and had increased the MPAP of the said MML by 3 MMT without, however, modifying its earlier Order dated 5.08.2011 in respect of NMDC. As a result of the aforesaid two orders, the MPAP of NMDC and MML together is 16.06 MMT though the R&R Plan approved by the Monitoring Committee for NMDC restricts its MPAP to 9.45 MMT and that of MML to 1.06 MMT. As the total MPAP permitted in favour of all the mining leases in Bellary district including the MPAP of 16.06 MMT in favour of NMDC and MML works out to the tune of 26.157 MMT and, therefore, in excess of the cap imposed by this Court (25 MMT), the CEC by Order dated 2.12.2016 had directed the Monitoring Committee to reduce the MPAP of other mining leases on a pro rata basis so that the cap fixed by the Court (25 MMT for Bellary district) is maintained. Accordingly, the Monitoring Committee had fixed the MPAP of M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. at 1.17 MMT and 1.355 MMT respectively as against 1.60 MMT and 1.80 MMT respectively, as approved. It is in these circumstances that M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. have filed the I.As. seeking appropriate modification of the orders of the Court dated 5.08.2011 and 1.09.2014 respectively.
       Finding of the Court:
       Recommendations of CEC deserve acceptance.
       Result: All IAs disposed of.

JUDGMENT

Ranjan Gogoi, J.

Two lessees, i.e., M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. (who have been classified in Categories 'A' and 'B' respectively by this Court in its previous Order) have instituted Interlocutory Application Nos. 270 and 271 essentially seeking modification of this Court's Orders dated 5.08.2011 and 1.09.2014 so as to enable the applicants to extract iron ore in accordance with the Maximum Permissible Annual Production ("MPAP" for short) approved by the Monitoring Committee in respect of the leases held by them.

2. In proceedings registered and numbered as Writ Petition (C) No. 562 of 2009 titled as "Samaj Parivartana Samudaya & Ors. v. State of Karnataka & Ors.", an absolute ban on mining activities in three districts of Karnataka, i.e, Bellary, Chitradurga and Tumkur was imposed by this Court by Orders dated 29.07.2011 and 26.08.2011. It is on the basis of the principle of intergenerational equity and to prevent and protect the huge ecological and environmental degradation following the rampant illegal mining in the aforesaid three districts of Karnataka that this Court had passed the aforesaid orders. However, to ensure that a minimum quantity of iron ore is available, through permissible and legal mining, by Order dated 5.08.2011, a public sector lessee, namely, M/s National Mineral Development Corporation ("NMDC" for short) was permitted to extract iron ore to the tune of 12 Million Metric Tonne ("MMT" for short) per year. Thereafter, by Order dated 13.04.2012, this Court had accepted the recommendations of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education ("ICFRE" for short) and fixed a ceiling of 25 MMT as the maximum production of iron ore from all the mining leases in the district of Bellary and 5 MMT in respect of the mining leases in the districts of Chitradurga and Tumkur. By Orders dated 3.09.2012 and 28.09.2012, this Court had permitted resumption of mining activities in Karnataka in a limited manner by permitting 18 and 63 leases in Categories 'A' and 'B' respectively to resume their activities subject to strict observance of the Reclamation and Rehabilitation Plan ("R&R Plan" for short) in respect of each of the leases as approved by the Monitoring Committee.

Pursuant to the aforesaid orders of this Court, M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. resumed the mining operations. The Monitoring Committee had fixed MPAP of M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. at 0.74 MMT and M/s MSPL Ltd. at 0.91 MMT respectively. Thereafter, the Central Empowered Committee ("CEC" for short) by Order dated 18.03.2016 recommended the enhancement of MPAP of M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. to 1.60 MMT and that of M/s MSPL Ltd. to the tune of 1.80 MMT. The said recommendation of the CEC was approved by the Monitoring Committee.

3. Notwithstanding the above, the lessees, i.e., M/s Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Ltd. and M/s MSPL Ltd. have not been fully able to exploit and operate to the extent of their approved MPAP of 1.60 MMT and 1.80 MMT respectively. This, according to the lessees, is on account of the two orders of this Court. The first is dated 5.08.2011 by which, as already noticed, the public sector lessee, i.e., NMDC was permitted to extract iron ore to the tune of 12 MMT per year. As the said NMDC was not able to do so, by Order dated 1.09.2014 this Court had permitted another public sector lessee M/s Mysuru Minerals Ltd. ("MML" for short) to make good the shortfall of NMDC and had increased the MPAP of the said MML by 3 MMT without, however, modifying its earlier Order dated 5.08.2011 in respect of NMDC. As a result of the aforesaid two orders, the MPAP of NMDC and MML together is 16.06 MMT though the R&R Plan approved by the Monitoring Committee for NMDC restricts its MPAP to 9.45 MMT and that of MML to 1.06 MMT. As the total MPAP permitted in favour of all the mining leases in Bellary district including the MPAP of 16.06 MMT in favour of NMDC and MML works o

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Judicial Analysis

SupremeToday

2017 Supreme(SC) 1198

IMPORTANT POINTFixing a cap upon extraction of mineral ore is the business of the Executive branch of the Central Government and not of Supreme Court. Yet, in absence of any control or effective regulatory measures as to the maximum output Court has to give directions.

Cases Referred (1)

Judicial Analysis

IMPORTANT POINT
Fixing a cap upon extraction of mineral ore is the business of the Executive branch of the Central Government and not of Supreme Court. Yet, in absence of any control or effective regulatory measures as to the maximum output Court has to give directions.