The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Tuesday gave its final approval to the London-based mining group Vedanta Resources Plc's acquisition of a majority stake in Cairn India Limited for $8.48 billion.
The CCEA, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, cleared the deal at a meeting of the Cabinet on Tuesday. Fresh approval was necessitated in view of the Home Ministry pointing to alleged cases of serious human rights violations, default of payment, environmental damage in its mining and metal projects in India and abroad.
Following the serious issues raised by the Home Ministry, officials in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry put up the deal before the CCEA for a review.
In a communication to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry through an office memorandum on November 25, 2011, the Home Ministry conveyed its security no-objection certificate (NOC) to the Cairn-Vedanta deal. However, the note said: “Independent of the above security clearances, this company/group has come to notice of involvement in some cases of default of payment, human rights violations, environmental damage in its mining and metal projects in India and abroad.The Petroleum Ministry's CCEA note points out that all approvals and pre-conditions for the share transfer have been achieved.
