Illegal Coal Mining & Transportation: Meghalaya High Court Orders Deployment Of CAPF After CISF Expresses Unwillingness

The bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee, Justices H S Thangkhiew and W. Diengdoh while hearing a PIL for tackling the menace of illegal coal mining in the state, observed,

"The Union Ministry of Home, through the Union Home Secretary, is directed to ensure the deployment of 10 companies of the appropriate Central Armed Police Force to be commanded independently or jointly by the officers from the local police that may be selected by the Court, strictly for the purpose of keeping a vigil on the roads and arresting the illegal transportation of illegally mined coal in the State.”

The court also directed that the Union’s response should be available when the matter appears next fortnight.

Earlier, the Court had rejected the "Grandiose" blueprint prepared by the State government to deploy 100 companies of CRPF to curb the menace of Illegal Coal Mining. It had suggested that instead of CRPF, which functions under the command of the State Police, CISF may be deployed to function independently.

The Court had thus asked CISF to indicate as to how its deployment can be done.

The Force has however expressed its unwillingness to take up the assignment, stating that the nature of the work does not fall within its usual activities.

Discarding the contention of the state that it has done all within its power to check or stop the illegal mining of coal and that there was now a system in place which has completely stopped the illegal transportation of coal, the bench pointed at a news reported in newspapers the previous day, of an accident of a truck illegally transporting illegally mined coal in Ri-Bhoi district.

It is in this backdrop that it has ordered for deployment of CAPF.

"There is no doubt that both illegal mining and illegal transportation of coal continues and, if the rule of law is to be asserted in this State, it cannot be done with the present machinery available in the State", the bench said

The next hearing on the PIL will be held on April 27.

Case Title: In Re: (Suo motu): Illegal mining of coal in the State of Meghalaya

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