High Court puts rider on three coal blocks

The Delhi High Court (HC) said on Tuesday that the Government's final vesting orders with regard to three coal blocks would be subject to the final outcome of pleas of companies which were prior allotees and had challenged as inadequate the compensation provided for these blocks by the Coal Ordinance, 2014.

A Bench of Justices BD Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva passed the order with regard to the Jitpur and Dumri coal blocks in Jharkhand and Sial Ghoghri block in Madhya Pradesh, which had been earlier allotted to Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), Nilachal Iron and Power Limited (NIPL) and Prism Cement Limited respectively.

The court also issued notice to the coal ministry and sought its response by April 8 on the pleas of JSPL, NIPL and Prism, who had alleged that the ministry's calculation of compensation was much lower than the figures they had arrived at.

The HC had last on Thursday directed the government not to pay the secured creditors of the companies which had failed to win blocks earlier allocated to them till their pleas alleging under-compensation for their mining infrastructure are decided.

The order was passed on the pleas of various iron and steel and power companies like Jindal, GVK Power, Jayaswal Neco, Prakash Industries, Utkal Coal among others. The court said that government orders vesting the mines, earlier owned by these companies, with the successful bidders would be subject to final outcome of their pleas challenging the 2014 Coal Ordinance provisions on method of determining compensation for mining infrastructure.

These matters have been listed for hearing before the same bench on April 8.

Meanwhile, 38 mines were allotted to Central and state public sector undertakings, including power major NTPC, DVC and steel giant SAIL.

The allocation follows the auction of 33 blocks in two tranches to private companies, which will yield Rs 2 lakh crore in revenue to state governments surpassing the Comptroller and Auditor General of India's (CAG) earlier loss estimates of Rs 1.86 lakh crore on the allotment without auction of 204 mines cancelled by the Supreme Court.

"The government has allotted 38 coal mines to Central and state PSUs," coal secretary Anil Swarup told news agency PTI. All the blocks allotted are for the power sector barring Sitanala, which was allotted to SAIL.