Coal news and updates

The Supreme Court's decision to cancel all coal block allocations since 1993 on the suggestion of the coal ministry has posed a fresh problem to the Centre on acquisition of the land, which was bought by allottees for mining purposes.

 

Coal block allocation and cancellation was one thing, but mere cancellation of allocation does not take away the ownership of the land, on which the coal mines were situated, from the allottees.

 

To implement the court's decision and take back the coal mines would mean that the government has to take back the land along with the mines, but the Supreme Court judgment is silent on the land aspect.

To get out of this procedural and legal hitch, the coal ministry has thought of issuing an ordinance vesting the land along with the coal mines back with the Centre. It has referred the issue to attorney general Mukul Rohatgi for an opinion on the legality of issuing an ordinance for the purpose.

 

Rohatgi told TOI from London over phone that several options were being thought of, including issuance of an ordinance. "Nothing concrete has been worked out. We have time to think over the legal process needed for implementing the Supreme Court judgment and auction the cancelled coal blocks," he said.

 

The Supreme Court had on September 24 cancelled 214 coal blocks allocated since 1993 and gave the owners six months time to wind up their work. The court saved only four blocks — one each belonging to NTPC and SAIL and two allocated to Sasan ultra mega power project — from cancellation.

 

The court granted six months time to mining companies to wind up their operations. The Centre is planning to utilize this time to devise a procedure for taking back the coal mines and put them on auction.

 

The court had also asked the owners of illegally allotted coal mines to pay the government an additional levy of Rs 295 per tonne of coal extracted from the mines. The SC had said the Centre's stand that it was prepared for cancellation of allocation as logical consequence of the court's earlier judgment declaring all allocations illegal and arbitrary helped it in arriving at a decision quickly on fate of coal blocks.

 

 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/