Mining:SC slams bureaucracy (Herald)

SC slams bureaucracy September 20, 2013 Says AG’s opinion to State govt allowed mining within 1 km of sanctuaries TEAM HERALD NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday slammed the bureaucracy for lacking neutrality, which they said was resulting in the “entire country getting chaotic”. Passing its observations during the hearing of the Goa Mining Case, the Court went on to say that the approach has been to circumvent the law. “The approach has been to circumvent (the law and rules) to allow mining,” the Court said referring to the legal opinion given to the State government regarding mining operations within 1 km of the National Parks/ Wildlife Sanctuaries given by the State Advocate General. Based on the legal opinion, the State government had taken the stand that the Supreme Court’s order dated 4th August, 2006 does not prohibit mining operations within a distance of 1 km from the National Parks/ Wildlife Sanctuaries. “A strong neutral bureaucracy which will carefully and professionally decide on issues has been missing. Where is the steel frame? It is crushed broken and the backbone finished. Here as per desired they put up notes. This is how the entire governance is getting chaotic,” the Court observed. “From that it seems that the sanctuary is inconvenient for the mines. It should be the other way around. It should be like this that the mines are inconvenient for the sanctuary,” the Court headed by Justice AK Patnaik said. “The country would be very safe if the ‘steel frame’ (the term used by former British prime minister David Lloyd George in referring to the Imperial Civil Service in the House of Commons in 1935) is still there.” The State government based on the ‘legal opinion’ submitted by the Advocate General had allowed mining within one kilometre. The CEC in its interim report has viewed this as a violation. “We were going through the case to see who has given this opinion and we realised it was the Advocate General,” Justice Patnaik said adding: “Thank God it was not a former Supreme Court Judge” amid guffaws in the courtroom. Justice Patnaik viewed with concurrence the custom of seeking legal opinion in a bid to legalize an illegality as pointed out by Prashant Bhushan previously. The Court also expressed its disappointment over the absence of officials of the Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as the Ministry of Mines including the absence of their lawyers during the proceedings of the Court. “It appears that as far as this is concerned that you do what you want. This is the steel frame,” Justice Patnaik said sarcastically. Officials and the counsels of the central government have been consistently absent from Court during the hearing so far with the Court on Tuesday calling for the presence of solicitor general on grounds that he should hear the arguments to be able to respond to the allegations. The Court also pointed out the officials should be present in order to keep the lawyers updated during the hearings. “After 4th August 2006, the MoEF and the State government should not have granted the Environmental Clearances for mining leases located within a distance of 1 km from the boundaries of the nearby National Parks/ Wildlife Sanctuaries. Environmental Clearances granted prior to 4th August 2006 should have been withdrawn,” the CEC submitted before the Court on Thursday reading out excerpts from its interim report submitted before the Court. “The environmental clearances and other statutory approvals for such mining leases should be set aside and the responsibility for allowing mining operations (in at least 23 mining leases) should be fixed and follow-up action be taken,” the CEC told the Court. The CEC counsel, Adv A D N Rao will continue his arguments even as they made it clear that their report was based on the information provided by the State government itself as well as the central government. The CEC also pitched that the Court decide on mines which have come within 10 kilometres of wildlife sanctuaries without permission from the National Board for Wildlife as was mandatory. The arguments will continue on Tuesday. http://www.heraldgoa.in/News/Main%20Page%20News/SC-slams-bureaucracy/79694.html