High Court: Delayed response of Centre in decade-old case of mining in Punjab border areas ‘unfortunate’

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 2
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has described as “unfortunate” the Union of India’s failure to respond for past eight to nine months to its directions regarding mining in border areas of Punjab.
The inaction is particularly significant given that the high court in November last year had instructed the Union Ministry of Defence to reassess ongoing mining activities within 20 km of the state’s border area.
The Bench had issued the direction after taking into consideration the fact that mining had been going on for a decade now and a decision was to be taken by the Ministry as far as the activity within 20 km of the border area was concerned.
“Keeping in view that for the past 10 years this mining is going on in border area of State of Punjab, a direction is being given to the Ministry of Defence to consider this aspect after going through the material available in the writ petitions and the photographs placed on record and then take a decision that how the mining can be carried out legally in the border areas,” the Bench had asserted.
As the matter came up for resumed hearing, the Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Anil Kshetarpal granted three weeks to the Centre as “a matter of last indulgence” to file response/status report.
The permission was subject to payment of Rs 20,000 costs to be deposited in the PGI Poor Patients’ Fund. The Bench observed the Ministry of Defence was granted time on November 7, 2023, to file the response/status report. Another opportunity was afforded on December 13, 2023. But senior panel counsel appearing for the Union was seeking time yet again.
“It is unfortunate to note that the Union of India, who is the contesting party, has not responded to the directions of this Court for the past eight to nine months,” the Bench observed.
The direction has its genesis in an additional affidavit submitted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, through senior panel counsel for the Union of India Arun Gosain.
Among other things, it said the Ministry of Defence had issued guidelines on “security consideration on construction activities/other activities along border areas”.
The Bench observed the guidelines made it clear that all activities connected with mining within 20 km from all the borders, including seaboard frontier, were to be planned in consultation with Ministry of Defence.