New Delhi, Nov 29 (PTI) The Supreme Court Friday held that a special court has powers to take cognizance under the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act (MMDRA) for offences like illegal mining and transportation of minerals and conduct a joint trial of accused of other crimes if permissible under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The findings on several legal issues relating to powers of a special court to take cognizance of offences under the MMDR Act have been rendered in a judgement by which the top court dismissed the appeals filed against the Karnataka High Court's decision.

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The High Court had refused to quash the criminal proceedings against some persons accused of transporting and exporting iron ore without the permission of the Forest Department and the Department of Mines and Geology.

The iron ore involved in the transactions is alleged to have been removed from the Mining Lease at Kallahari Village, Bellary and it was alleged to have been stocked in an unauthorized stockyard without bulk permits and later transported allegedly causing a loss of Rs 3.27 crore to the state exchequer.

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A bench of justices D Y Chandrachud, Vikram Nath, and B V Nagarathna dealt with various legal objections raised by Pradeep S Wodeyar, Managing Director of Canara Overseas Limited and Lakshminarayan Gubba, who is a director of the said company, and others against whom the cognizance of offences was taken by the special court.

Dealing with the issue of cognizance, the bench said that a special court should take cognizance of the offence upon committal of the case from the Magisterial court.

“The Special Court has the power to take cognizance of offences under MMDR Act and conduct a joint trial with other offences if permissible under Section 220 CrPC. There is no express provision in the MMDR Act which indicates that Section 220 CrPC does not apply to proceedings under the MMDR Act,” it said.

“The Special Court does not have, in the absence of a specific provision to that effect, the power to take cognizance of an offence under the MMDR Act without the case being committed to it by the Magistrate under Section 209 CrPC. The order of the Special Judge dated 30 December 2015 taking cognizance is therefore irregular,” Justice Chandrachud said in the 81-page judgement.

The apex court rejected the contention that section 465 of the CrPC, which permits appellate courts to ignore minor procedural lapses in the interest of speedy justice, cannot be used to allow the cognizance of the offence in an irregular manner.

“The objective of Section 465 is to prevent the delay in the commencement and completion of the trial. Section 465 CrPC is applicable to interlocutory orders such as an order taking cognizance and summons order as well. Therefore, even if the order taking cognizance is irregular, it would not vitiate the proceedings in view of Section 465 CrPC,” Justice Chandrachud, writing the judgement for the bench, said.

It further said the cardinal principle any challenge to an irregular order must be urged at the earliest and while determining if there was a failure of justice, the courts ought to address it concerning the stage of the challenge, the seriousness of the offence, and the apparent intention to prolong proceedings, among others.

Referring to facts of the instant case, the top court said the cognizance order was challenged by the accused after two years.

“No reason was given to explain the inordinate delay. Moreover, in view of the diminished role of the committal court under Section 209 of the Code of 1973 as compared to the role of the committal court under the erstwhile Code of 1898, the gradation of irregularity in a cognizance order made in Sections 460 and 461 and the seriousness of the offence, no failure of justice has been demonstrated,” it said while dismissing the appeal.

The bench, while observing that it is a settled principle of law that cognizance is taken of the offence and not the offender, said that in the present case, the order indicated that the Special Judge had perused all the relevant material relating to the case before taking the cognizance of the offence and hence, no failure of justice took place and this irregularity would thus not vitiate the proceedings.

The verdict said since the cognizance of offence was taken by the Special Judge based on a police report and not a private complaint, it was not obligatory for him to issue a “fully reasoned order if it otherwise appears that the Special Judge has applied his mind to the material”.

The top court said that submission that one of the accused was not in charge of and responsible for the affairs of the company during the commission of the alleged offence as required under the MMDR Act is a matter for trial.

“There appears to be a prima facie case against A-1 (Pradeep S Wodeyar), which is sufficient to arraign him as an accused at this stage,” the bench held.

The FIR in the case was registered following the directions of the apex court in a PIL related to illegal mining and transportation of iron from several districts of Karnataka.

‘Samaj Parivartana Samudaya', an NGO, had filed a Petition in the top court regarding illegal mining in the forest areas in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The Central Empowered Committee, according to an order of the apex court, had submitted a report on 7 January 2011 regarding six mining leases in the Bellary Reserve Forests, Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh, and later CBI was entrusted with the probe.

In some cases, pertaining to relatively smaller quantities of iron ore were probed by the state government agency.

On October 9, 2014, an FIR in the present case was registered against Lakshminarayan Gubba, Managing Director of Canara Overseas Private Limited, Canara Overseas Private Limited, K Ramappa, owner of M/s Mineral Miners and Traders, and others.

(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)