Court order on JSPL coal blocks won't hit auction: Ministry

The Delhi High Court order Wednesday to remove two Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) coal blocks from the auction list will not affect the auction process as the removed blocks were not part of the lot being auctioned in the first phase, Coal Secretary Anil Swarup has said.

Informing reporters here Thursday that 23 coal blocks are being bid for in the first phase, Swarup said five blocks will be excluded from the auction process due to the high court order.

The government has received 86 qualified bids for 19 mines for the unregulated steel and cement sectors, and 48 qualified bids for the regulated power sector, the coal secretary said.

The court Wednesday directed the auction technical committee to review its own decision to change the end-use of two coal blocks earlier allotted to JSPL and remove the mines from the auction.

These mines, previously reserved for non-regulated sector were later shifted to the regulated power sector, thereby barring the earlier owners JSPL from bidding for the blocks.

The company had challenged the decision to alter the end-use of its Gare Palma IV/6 mine in Chhattisgarh and Utkal B1 and B2 mines in Odisha, saying it had invested over $4.80 billion in setting up the end-use plants.

Swarup also said the government is yet to decide on approaching the Supreme Court against the high court order.

He said the government will appoint custodians for those mines which cannot be auctioned till March 31.

"If we are unable to complete auctions by March 2015 then a government custodian will carry out mining," he said.

A total of 110 blocks are to be auctioned and a full list of all qualified bidders will be released soon, he added.

The apex court had, in August last year, cancelled the allocation of 214 blocks between 1993 and 2010, holding these to have been done in an illegal manner by an "ad-hoc and casual" approach, resulting in "unfair distribution" of the "national wealth".