On a day the Naveen Patnaik government received a thumping electoral victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court issued an interim order to ban mining operations with respect to 157 out of 187 leases in Orissa. Allowing only 30 leases to operate in the state that provides for more than 50 per cent of the iron ore of the country, the Green Bench headed by Justice AK Patnaik said that “an interim order needs to be passed in respect of the lessees who are operating the leases in violation of the law.” The bench, also comprising Justices SS Nijjar and FMI Kalifulla, classified mining leases in four categories and prohibited mining for 102 leases that lacked requisite environmental clearances and approvals under the Forest (Conservation) Act, approved Mining Plan or a Consent to Operate under the relevant provisions in the law. Further, 29 mining leases that had been rejected or have lapsed were also restricted from mining operations. The bench noted there were 56 iron ore and manganese mining leases presently operating in the Orissa, but out of these lease deeds had been executed only in respect of 16. The remaining 40 mining leases were operating under the deemed renewal provision in the law. This order could affect operations of captive mines of steel makers SAIL and Tata Steel and also standalone miners such as Essel Mining & Industries. The combined production capacity of these 26 mines is estimated to be around 30 million tonne. The apex court was hearing a PIL seeking CBI probe into illegal mining in Orissa.
