KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - In a series of diverse rulings, India’s Supreme Court has turned down petitions from a spate of private companies to review its earlier decision to cancel the allocation of 214 coal blocks, but has agreed to hear a plea against a government ordinance issued in the wake of the cancellations.
The apex court also rejected a plea to review the penalty imposed by the courts on coal already extracted from the coal blocks that were cancelled by the Supreme Court in September, on the grounds of ‘arbitrary and illegal allocation process’.
Some of India’s leading companies, including some that had entered into joint ventures with government-owned companies which had been allocated coal blocks, submitted a petition before the court seeking that the court review its verdict.
However, the Supreme Court said “we are not going into it. Whether your case was considered by a screening committee or not is not the issue. We have already held that the entire process was flawed and illegal”.
On cancelling the coal blocks, the court had divided the 214 coal blocks in two groups, one which had not commenced operations, and those that were either in or near production.
The court saved the 40 blocks that were classified as ‘in production’ from cancellation and directed that these blocks be put under major Coal India Limited until such time as the assets were handed over to other investors through competitive bidding. The six blocks considered to be ‘near production’ were not treated any differently than those on which little to no progress had been made.
The court, however, fixed December 16 as the next date of hearing on petitions challenging the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance 2014.
The challenge to the ordinances came days before the Indian government was scheduled to place it before the ongoing session of Parliament for ratification into an Act, forming part of a major reform of the coal sector.
The ordinance, promulgated in the wake of the cancellation of the allocation of coal blocks, is among other issues planned for auction of the cancelled coal blocks and opening up of coal mining for private investors.