The Odisha High Court on Wednesday commenced hearing of the writ petitions filed by the IMFA, Jindal Stainless, FACOR and Balasore Alloys asserting their right of personal hearing to be granted by the State Government in the context of a third renewal of the chrome ore mining lease of the Tata Steel in the Sukinda area.
Appearing for IMFA, P Chidambaram traced the history of the lease benefits enjoyed by the Tata Steel from 1953 onwards.
At the stage of the second renewal, the High Court had in a batch of writ petitions held that all stakeholders, including a prospective applicant, were to be heard before the Government decided on the renewal on the touchstone “mineral development”.
The judgment of the High Court was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1996, and that has also been the law consistently noticed by the Supreme Court in the context of the second and subsequent renewals as distinct from an initial grant.
Jayant Das, appearing for the Jindal Stainless, while adopting the arguments of Chidambaram, supplemented the same with the requirements in law of the contents of “mineral development”, which should among other things take into consideration the competing needs of different industrial users of chrome ore for the purpose of ensuring an objective and equitable distribution.
Relying upon the Supreme Court judgments and the judgment of the High Court, Das submitted that concept of “mineral development” includes the
consideration of equitable distribution in terms of distributive justice of the chrome ore among competing requirements.
Abhisek Singhvi, appearing for the Tata Steel, commenced his replies asserting that the judgments cited by the petitioners were conditioned by a concession by the Central Government, and no binding law has been laid down to confer a right of hearing to a person whose application would be premature before the determination by the State Government regarding the renewal, especially relating to the quantum in the context of “mineral development”.
The arguments would continue.