SC: Check Jindal, Adani for cases
The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Central Empowerment Committee on forests to examine whether any case for CBI probe is made out against two private mining companies, Jindal Steels and Adani, for illegal mining in Karnataka under the patronage of some politicians and bureaucrats.
An order to this effect was passed by a bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar on a petition of Karnataka-based NGO, Samaj Parivartan Samudaya, on whose petition CBI probe had earlier been ordered against some other mining firms. The CEC was given to weeks’ time to submit his assessment report.
Meanwhile, the top court took on record second report of the CEC on the issue of illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka, which is presently stayed by the apex court to enable the government to sell by auction illegally extracted iron ore material of about 25 million tons to the domestic steel industry at market price to ensure that no loss is caused to the exchequer due to the unauthorised mining on massive scale over the years.
The top court directed all mining companies to co-operate with the CEC to draw a road map for rehabilitation and restoration of environment damaged due to massing illegal mining in the state and it would start taking up he cases of each companies regarding the rehabilitation and restoration from next hearing.
Regarding the CBI probe against Jindal Steel and Adani, a fresh petition was filed by the NGO alleging that Lokayukta in its report had strongly “indicted” them. The NGO’s petition claimed that illegal mining by Jindal Steel had caused a loss of `324 crore.
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