National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

applications, could exercise the jurisdiction of the State Governments in case offailure of the State Government in deciding such applications within theprescribed time limit. However, no legal opinion appears to have been taken onthe issue whether and how it can be ensured by statutory changes in the MMDRAct 1957 that the Central Government decides revision applications within thespecified time period. It was imperative that opinions on both the issues weretaken together for the reason that if reply to the latter is negative, the intendedobjective would not be met and the whole exercise to address the problembecomes infructuous. If the reply to the latter issue is negative, the result wouldbe that the applications that allegedly remain pending with the states willcontinue to remain pending with the Central Government. The recommendationwould, thus, only result into transfer of jurisdiction from the States to theCentre, which is not acceptable.5.8 In our assessment, as a result of the impugned recommendations, theState Governments, to abide by the inadequate time schedules, particularly inthe case of multiple applications, running in hundreds in some cases, would becompelled to take decisions without complete information / data / documentsand the quality of disposal would suffer. This would lead to long drawnlitigations, with more and more revisions and writs being filed, blocking themineral bearing areas in litigations. The impugned recommendations, thus,being un-implement able in spirit, would be counter productive.5.9 In deciding the revision cases by the Central Government in multipleapplication cases that would be filed under the proposed new clause (ii) ofsection 30, inordinate delays are sure to take place for the reason that in suchcases, a large number of applicants would need to be heard by the CentralGovernment before taking a decision. When large number of such casesconverge at the Central Government level, the pendency of cases in the Ministryof Mines might become unmanageable. The officers of the State Governmentwould also get over-burdened as they would be required to present the case ofthe State Government before the Central Government rather than devoting theirtime for disposal of original applications. Further, the State Governmentsthemselves would need to become parties to the litigation and appear before theCentral Government, an unhappy / undesirable situation for the States.5.10 The experience in the field has been that without the active support andconcurrence of the State Governments, it is not possible to develop onshoreminerals and mineral oil resources even if mineral concessions are granted. It ismore so necessary in the case of development of mines because the number ofareas in which help and assistance of the State Governments is required byminers are many. The suggested statutory changes as a solution to the problemof delays may not be conductive to the harmonious relations and for the help264