New Delhi, Sep 7 (PTI) The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the Goa government to follow a transparent and open bidding process, if it wants to maximise its revenues, rather than backing the renewal of leases by big mining corporates.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and Hima Kohli dismissed a Vedanta Ltd plea against a 2019 Bombay High Court decision by which it had refused to declare that its lease as per the provisions of law was valid till 2037.

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“There are elaborate judgements of this court in Goa Foundation cases. Why is Goa not following due procedure laid down by this court. An impression is being created that Goa is backing these big corporates to renew mining leases. Goa must follow transparent open bidding process, if it wants to maximise its revenue,” the bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Goa government.

Mehta said that all that it wants is that maximization of revenue from the mining.

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The bench said that it knows the Goa government will support the renewal of lease before the High Court and asked Mehta to advise the state government properly.

During the hearing, senior advocate Krishnan Venugopal, appearing for Vedanta, said their leases were previously granted by Portuguese regime as mining concessions till 1987.

He said that a new Abolition Act was brought in 1987 which deemed mining leases of Vedanta to end on November 22, 1987.

Venugopal said that the Act, however, provided for the renewal of lease under Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act for a period of 50 years till 2037.

He said that the petitioner has made a representation to Goa on October 29, 2019 to amend the lease deeds with an end date of 2037.

The bench said it will not like to interfere with the High Court verdict and dismissed the petition.

The top court also refused to entertain a writ petition filed by another mining lease holder Geetabala MN Parulekar and said, “We don't want mining lease holders to come here under Article 32. This is Supreme Court of India. We are not going to spend so much time on hearing individual mining lease matter. You should go to the High Court. Why should we open doors of Article 32 jurisdiction for these kinds of matters”.

The bench told senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for Parulekar, it is not going to entertain this petition and instead he should withdraw it and go to high court.

Singhvi then withdrew the petition.

The top court had in 2018 in Goa Foundation case cancelled 88 mining leases which were renewed by the state government, saying it has led to rampant exploitation of state's fragile ecology.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)