The Meghalaya High Court today pulled up the State government for allowing tens of thousands of metric tonnes of coal to be cleared for export through land customs stations within the State without seeking to ascertain the source or origin of such coal.
Taking up the PIL filed by Champer M. Sangma regarding illegal coal export by Jaimaa Coal Private Ltd, the division bench of the High Court said, “It is alarming that despite the State understanding the purport of the request by the Central agencies, it was so lax that it allowed tens of thousands of metric tonnes of coal to be cleared for export through land customs stations within the State without, apparently, seeking to ascertain the source or origin of such coal.”
“The complicity of the State with the mafia and the racket operating in the illegal mining of coal and its illegal transportation is clear and obvious and there can be little doubt that the higher-ups in the administration are the beneficiaries of the illegal gains and responsible for the colossal loss of revenue that has been occasioned to the State,” the High Court added.
According to the High Court, illegal mining of coal could not have continued unless there was transportation of coal and, without transportation and no demand, illegal mining would have died a natural death.
“In entities like the respondent No. 14 (Jaimaa Coal Private Ltd) herein, aided and abetted by the State, finding a way to export the illegally-mined coal in the State there was demand for the product that resulted in illegal mining on a larger scale. And, this despite Supreme Court orders affirming the National Green Tribunal prohibition on illegal mining that have been in place since or about 2016 and the Chief Secretary to the State, no less, being tasked with the responsibility of ensuring due compliance with the orders,” it added.
The court said that any reasonable or rational or responsible administration ought, after the observations made in the orders passed in this and the connected proceedings, to discover the source of the coal that the respondent No. 14 (Jaimaa Coal Private Ltd) and its associates exported through the Gasuapara land custom station in the State. It also said that any enquiry in this regard may be uncomfortable for the highest officials in the executive.
During today’s hearing, the land customs authorities stated that though they do not have any role to look into an e-way bill that has been certified upon being checked by the State authorities, several of the e-way bills submitted by Jaimaa Coal Private Ltd showing the delivery of coal in Dudhnoi revealed what may have been going on.
“It may not be out of place, in this context, to record that in several of the orders of this Court, particularly in the suo motu proceedings, this Court has referred to the recent mushrooming of coal dumps or depots between Dudhnoi and Paikan on the National Highway in the Goalpara district connecting Guwahati to North Bengal. It has also been recorded in such orders that on this stretch from Dudhnoi to Paikan, of approximately 10 to 15 km, there are at least three roads which come from the south to meet the National Highway and such roads originate in Meghalaya,” the High Court said.
“It takes no rocket science or great IQ to infer that illegally mined coal from Meghalaya is dumped around Dudhnoi and then delivered from Dudhnoi to agencies in Meghalaya for the ultimate export thereof through land customs stations in Meghalaya. The Central agencies suspected such activities and in the letters referred to in the previous order warned the State, including through the Union Minister of Finance,” it added.
