The Justice MB Shah Commission, appointed by the Central Government to probe the mining scam in Odisha and some other States, has submitted its third and final report.
The panel has submitted the report to the Union Mines Ministry and it would be tabled in Parliament after following necessary procedures, sources said. The Commission has submitted a few reports together. The term of the Commission will expire on Friday. The one-man panel had earlier submitted two interim reports based on which the Supreme Court imposed a temporary ban on mining activities in Goa, the country’s largest exporter of iron ore.
Of the two reports, one was on illegal iron ore mining across the country and the other was on illegal mining in Goa. The detailed contents of the final report were not immediately available. The Commission has made a thorough probe into the bank transactions of exporters, traders and mining lease owners to track down the exact financial transactions, the sources said.
On reports of large-scale illegal mining and failure of States to effectively curb this menace, the Centre had set up the Commission in November 2010. The panel was initially supposed to submit its final report within 18 months from the date of first sitting. The Commission had its first sitting on January 17, 2011 and was, thus, required to submit the final report by July 16, 2012.
However, the Union Cabinet, in July 2012, decided to give it a one-year extension given the voluminous data the Commission had to collect and compile on mining from seven States, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Goa and Madhya Pradesh. It was required to submit its report by July 16, 2013.