Even as the Ms Meena Gupta Committee wound up its visit to Orissa on POSCO case, the state government is all set to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court within next one week, challenging the Orissa High Court’s order that set aside the prospective mining lease in Khandadhar iron ore mines to the South Korean steel company.

Mr Manoj Ahuja state steel and mines secretary said the state would appeal against the HC order, urging the apex court to consider Khandadhar as a notified mining area. The state would reason that it granted PL to POSCO as a special case under the Mining and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act.

In July this year, a Bench of the Orissa High Court comprising Justices BP Das and BP Ray had disapproved of the manner in which the state government recommended POSCO India’s name for prospecting licence over the iron rich Khandadhar mines for which about 227 parties had applied.

In January 2009, the Orissa government had recommended to the Centre for grant of PL in favor of POSCO in an area of 2,500 hectares of the Khandadhar iron ore reserve in Sundargarh district. Once the Union Mines Ministry green lighted the state’s recommendation for PL, it would have paved the way for the Korean steel major to start prospecting. After prospecting the area, POSCO would have been eligible for applying for final mining lease for extracting 600 million tonnes of iron ore over the next 30 years.
The recommendation for PL was made in favor of the POSCO as per Section 11(5) of the MMDR Act. However, several companies including Geomin Minerals challenged the state government’s contentions in 2009 before the Orissa HC.

Meanwhile, the Meena Gupta committee may submit its report latest by October 15 instead of September 30 as it was awaiting certain documents.

(Sourced from Indianexpress.com)