The Supreme Court quashed all 88 mining leases renewed by the. government in Goa in 2015 to “benefit private mining leaseholders.”
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The judgment by a Bench led by Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta traced the “rapacious and rampant exploitation” of Goa’s fragile ecology by private mining lease holders, whose sole motive is to make profits, for years
The 102 page judgment of the apex court noted how these leases were hastily renewed by the State in 2014 with retrospective effect from 2007, just before an amended Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act made auction of leases mandatory for mining notified minerals like iron ore.
“The primary beneficiary was, of course, the mining lease holder, a private entity, and the price was paid by the average Goan who had to suffer a polluted environment and witness the damage to the State’s ecology,” the Supreme Court said, summing up Goa's mineral policy.
The court found that some private miners owed the State “staggering” sums of up to Rs1,500 crore “towards value of ore extracted in excess of the environmental clearance.”
The court found that even groundwater was not spared by the evils of rampant mining.
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