Bhubaneshwar — The directorate of mines in the Odisha government is looking to appeal to the Odisha High Court to allow them to auction the Badampahar iron ore mine overruling the court’s order to hold the auction, a senior official in the government said.
“We may go for a special leave petition against the order to hold the auction of the iron ore mine,” the official told SteelMint.
“We have held up that auction. It has been held up as they got an Odisha High Court order. Although prima facie there was no ground for them to go to the court.”
According to the official, the court case by the current lease holder arose out of a misunderstanding because the current lease holder imagined the mine would be auctioned off even before the expiry of the lease.
Badampahar is a part of a list of 20 mines that are being currently auctioned. The leases of all of these mines, but Badampahar are expiring on March 31. Badampahar’s lease is expiring on May 26.
The auction that is underway, attracted technical bids for all of the mines including Badampahar.
“As per rule, we would have also allowed them to operate till 26th of May because the tender document very categorically says the mine will be granted to the new owner only on expiry of the old lease,” the official said.
But clearly this was misunderstood by the current lessee who simultaneously also prayed to the court that their names be deleted from the list of mines that are going up for auctions.
“That was a wrong move. After that they came (to me) and said, ‘we were under the wrong impression.’ I said you should have asked us before going to court. Why do you think the state will deviate from the rule?”
Now the directorate of mines wants to open the technical bids for Badampahar located in northern Odisha, even though it wants to give the mine to the new owner only after May 26.
The Odisha government’s mineral mines auction is a part of the new mining laws in the country for a fair method of granting raw materials to captive users and merchant miners via an auction. It has attracted 86 bidders including some of the biggest names in the global metal industry.
In the scramble to win the bids and secure as much raw material as possible, old lessees and bidders are quick to point out any anomalies in the bidding processes.
~ Inputs from Ruchira Singh
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