The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the ministry of environment and forest on a petition by the Orissa Mining Corporation, seeking quashing of the ministry’s July 11 order issued during the tenure of Jayram Ramesh withdrawing the bauxite mining permission to the corporation under controversial circumstances.
A bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik issued the notice after initial reservation, pointing out to OMC’s counsel K.K. Venugopal that the court could not enlarge the scope of corporation’s original petition, which did not have such a plea.
However, after Mr Venugopal said he was aware of this fact and in that case he should be permitted to amend his original petition, the bench issued the notice seeking MOEF reply.
Mr Venutopal said he had moved a fresh application highlighting the issue arising out of the July 11 order as the ministry had retracted from its earlier assessment.
OMC in the fresh petition stated that MoEF had given environment clearance by way of its August 30, 2010 order for “Stage-II” of mining project on 660 hectares of forest land for extraction of bauxite ore in Lanjigarh fields to the corporation.