SC Dsimisses Plea For Scrapping e-Auction Of Iron-Ore And Manganese By SC Monitoring Committee [Read Order]

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the plea of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries(FIMI), Southern Region to stop the e-auction of iron-ore and manganese ore by the monitoring of Court appointed Central Empowered Committee in Karnataka.  The Monitoring Committee was set up by the Supreme Court as per order dated 02.09.2011, taking into account the unauthorized and indiscriminate mining and sale of iron ore in Karnataka. In order to put a cap on mining activities, and thereby to limit the depredation of environment, and also to ensure that no revenue leakage happens, the Monitoring Committee was set up. Sale was possible only through e-auction.

The plea of the miners was that the situation in 2011 was no longer persisting, and that normalcy have been restored, thereby rendering any further monitoring unnecessary. M/s Vedanta Ltd., also intervened in the matter to support FIMI.  The Central Empowered Committee was also in agreement with the FIMI, and suggested monitoring by another committee comprising State Government officials. The Govt.of Karnataka also did not object to the stopping of monitoring.

However, the Court was not prepared to accept the unopposed plea of miners. The Court observed as follows:

While it is correct that any trading process has to be free and fair with liberty to the contracting parties to work out their own terms of sale and purchase, what cannot be ignored are the circumstances which had prompted the Court to conceive of and continue with a departure from the normal rule and instead to have a regulated, if not, highly controlled system of sale and purchase of iron-ore. Sale and purchase of iron-ore through the Court Appointed Monitoring Committee and by e-auction is not a singular but a connected facet of what was visualized by the Court in its bid to check, control and regulate mining and  also to restore nature and environment to its earlier pristine purity, so far as possible.  

The Court was of the view that it was pre-mature to dispense with the monitoring system, and held that the restoration of 'normalcy' in the process of sale and purchase of iron-ore must wait for the future and that till then the present arrangements should continue.