KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Illegal mining in India is back on the centre stage, with the country’s apex court ordering the establishment of an expert committee to review breaches in regulation leading to such activity in eastern province of Odsiha.

In a verdict last week, the Supreme Court directed that the committee be set up and headed by a retired judge of the court and that it should submit a final report within 12 weeks. The federal government will nominate a retired judge and other members of the committee over the next few days.

The fresh ruling followed an August 2017 verdict by the Supreme Court, which backed the government of Odisha’s attempt to recover an estimated $3.17-billion as penalty for illegal mining and violations of environmental laws.

At the time, a bench of the Supreme Court ruled that mining companies would be liable to pay back 100% of the price of mineral extracted in violation of the law, while rejecting earlier plea of the Indian government and court appointed Central Empowered Committee on illegal mining that only 30% of value of mineral should be recovered from the companies.

The value to be recovered from the companies pertained to mineral extracted in violation of mining plans and environmental laws by iron-ore and manganese mines since 2001.

The Supreme Court, in its August ruling, said that the provincial government of Odisha should take follow up measures to realise the money from miners by December 31, and that mining operations could be re-started only after mining lease holders paid the penalty.

With the apex court in its latest ruling not making any observation of the December deadline, the Odisha government officials said that they were going ahead with the recovery of the penalty as the calculation of the penalty payable by each miner was according to guidelines set by the courts and hence there was no window to offer any kind of relaxation. However, the Odisha miners have approached the local government seeking a reconciliation process claiming that while miners were willing to pay a penalty, the latter disputed the methodology of the government in calculating the amount levied on each miner and this was an area appropriate for a re-look through reconciliation talks, sources said.