SHILLONG: The Meghalaya High Court has said that it is apparent that the state government supported continuing illegal mining and directed the chief secretary to file a report on immediate measures taken to check the incidental loot of minor minerals, which it said has caused huge revenue loss to the state's exchequer.
Hearing a PIL, a division bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice W Diengdoh said "tens of crores of rupees" in revenue have been lost to the state from 2018 to 2021 due to the "tweaking" of the provisions of the state law that regulates mining of minor minerals (limestone) without following it up by maintaining any check or balance as to how the incidentally extracted limestone or minor mineral were being transported or dealt with.
"It obviously led to free loot and a mad scramble among the most favoured to make merry at the cost of the state. The guardians of the state assets let veritable poachers in for obvious extraneous considerations," the bench said on Tuesday.
The court noted that the advocate general who appeared for the State had no answer to any of the glaring anomalies that have been pointed out in the PIL and admitted to a sorry state of affairs.
"It is apparent that there was state support for the continuing illegal mining despite orders having been passed several years back by the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT)," the court observed and likened the state's action to a "house owner inviting thieves to loot all his properties and then seeking a commission on the sale thereof."
It directed the chief secretary to report on the immediate measures taken to check the incidental loot of minor minerals when the matter is taken up again on April 25.
"There is no doubt that there is executive complicity in the matter. Indeed, this reflects an utterly inept bureaucracy and no check or balance or any accountability at any level," the division bench said.
"Though it should not surprise the Court any more as it has already been discovered today (Tuesday) that despite having 50 years of reservation policy in state government jobs since the inception of the State, there is no roster system which is followed. The Administration seems lacking in every sphere from healthcare to traffic to preserving the environment or even implementing orders of the Supreme Court that remain outstanding for years together," it said.
The judges said it may be necessary for external agencies not having any connection with the State to be brought in to put the house in order here.
"It is inconceivable that such colossal maladministration caused by design would continue despite there being a bureaucratic set-up in place," they said.
The PIL, filed by a person named Lawyerson War, submitted that several persons incidentally extracted 99,061.2 MT, 42,907 MT and 34,621 cubic metre of limestone in the course of the construction of a farmhouse or a residential pathway or paving the way to a paddy field.
There are several such instances of large scale incidental extraction of limestone without it being in the course of any road construction or infrastructural project, it said.
The court said one of the persons who incidentally extracted limestone as a minor mineral was involved in coal-mining operations prior to the NGT ban as has been found in a list issued by the divisional forest officer of Jaintia Hills Territorial Division, Jowai, a region which saw rampant illegal coal mining that prompted suo motu proceedings to be initiated by it.
The court also said that it is difficult to apprehend that it is the forest department which is entrusted with monitoring of licenses and permits without there being any separate specialised authority in such regard.
It noted an amendment was brought about in the Meghalaya Minor Minerals Concession Rules, 2016 on January 29, 2018 to facilitate quarrying and mining.
A new definition was added to it by introducing inter alia to define incidental in the context of extraction of minor minerals as an unintended extraction arising out of non-mining activities such as construction of roads or other major infrastructural projects.
The court said though such incidental extraction of minor minerals was officially recognised, their transportation was not provided for.
Nonetheless, from the date of the notification of January 29, 2018 incidental challans came to be issued for transportation of minor minerals that had been incidentally extracted in terms of the definition of incidental introduced as Rule 2(u) of the said Rules of 2016.