Shivani Thakur
Published on: May 28, 2022 at 14:06 IST
The Meghalaya High court has directed the State government to implement recommendations of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and Supreme Court (SC) on illegal rat-hole coal mining within four weeks.
Prior to a prohibition on rat-hole mining of coal in Meghalaya by NGT in 2014, Supreme Court direction was allowing the sale of coal mine which had already extracted.
“None of the directions issued by the Hon’ble Supreme Court…and the NGT have been complied with by the concerned authorities,” The High Court noted.
The Court’s order came after the submission of a preliminary report by Justice BP Katakey (retd.), which detected non-compliance with the NGT and SC orders on the issue.
Officials mentioned in the report for compliance with the NGT and SC directions included regional offices of the Meghalaya government, state and central pollution control boards, the Northeast Space Applications Center and the Union ministry for environment, forest and climate change.
“It is a matter of regret that orders passed by SC and NGT continue to be violated and the directions issued are not implemented…all relevant authorities should get their acts in order and ensure complete implementation of the directions within four weeks from date,” High Court noted.
It also directed that copies of report should be sent to the Centre and Meghalaya government for responses on compliance with the directions.
The matter will be heard again on June 21.
Justice Katakey, who headed a committee by NGT on the issue, had submitted several recommendations regulating rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya.