The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed with effect from April 20, two orders passed by the Karnataka government, one prohibiting export of iron ore from 10 mining ports and the second banning issuance of mineral dispatch permits for transporting of iron ore for export.
A Bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice A.K. Patnaik in its order made it clear that the ban order would go from April 20 as the purpose for which it was imposed had been served.
The Bench said: “It is clear that the purpose for which the government orders dated July 26, 2010 [prohibiting export of iron ore] and July 28, 2010 [banning issuance of permits] were issued has been achieved and prima facie there is no ground to continue the same.”
The Bench said the Karnataka (Prevention of Illegal Mining, Transportation and Storage of material) Rules 2011 had come into effect from April 1.
Counsel's contention
However, counsel for Karnataka submitted that the State was yet to put in place the necessary infrastructure and personnel required to implement the Rules and the State would require at least another 15 days.
The Bench said: “In view of this submission, there shall be an interim stay of the operation of the Government Orders dated July 26, 2010 and July 28, 2010 with effect from April 20, as the State government has made the Rules with a view to achieve the object of preventing illegal mining/transportation/ storage.”
The Bench said the Karnataka Lokayukta had in its report of December 18, 2008 given certain suggestions and the State had said these were engaging the attention of the government.
The Lokayukta, among other things, said: “The most apt solution to the existing problem is to ban all trading, including export of minerals and reserve this mineral only for domestic consumption as captive mines dedicated to a given steel plant. This would solve many problems like excessive mining, illegal mining, because no dedicated plant would extract minerals more than it could consume and there will be no benefit from such excessive mining because they cannot sell it to anybody because of the ban on trading of minerals.”
‘Take remedial action'
The Bench said: “We are sure the State government will give serious attention to the several suggestions in the Report of the Lokayukta and take necessary remedial action.” It directed the matter to be listed in the first week of May.
