Pending Cases of Income Tax, Customs, Excise, Mines, Minerals must be disposed of quickly to prevent Misuse of Nation’s Property, says Madras HC [Read Order]

The Madras High Court held that the Pending Cases of Income Tax, Customs, Excise, Mines, Minerals must be disposed of quickly to prevent misuse of the nation’s property.

The relief sought for in the writ petition is to direct the respondents to grant necessary transport permits in favour of the petitioner for mining and transporting mined minerals in terms of the mining lease granted in respect of lands situated at Therani Village, Kunnam Taluk, Perambalur District to its factory at Dalmiapuram, Trichy District in respect of the petitioner’s mining lease areas.

The counsel for the petitioner-Company, Dalmia Refractories Limited made a submission that the Mining Operations in the subject field has already been suspended and further the mined minerals are also unable to be transported on account of various other reasons. However, the petitioner has to submit the necessary ‘Environmental Clearance Certificate’ for grant of lease.

The single bench of Justice SM Subramaniam While considering the writ petitions relating to Mining Operations, this Court would able to trace out number of instances, where excess mining operations were carried on without adhereing to the Rules and Regulations and in some cases by virtue of interim orders granted by this Court and by keeping the writ petitions long years, undue advantages are taken by the Mining Operators. All these things are to be seriously taken note of by the State also, as it involves the State Revenue, which is of paramount importance.

“The growing tendency on writ side is that such writ petitions involving large scale revenue, more specifically, Income Tax, Customs, Excise, Mines and Minerals etc., interim orders are in force for several years and the Nation’s properties are being looted or misused or taken undue advantage of. Such a situation is absolutely unconstitutional and furthermore anything under the earth belongs to the Government and it is the Nation’s property, which belongs to ‘We the People of India’. Thus, no one can be allowed to extract without adhering to the Act, Rules and Regulations and any violations are to be treated seriously and all these persons must be liable for all consequences,” the court said.

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