NGT dismisses plea against Bihar govt's policy on sand mining

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday dismissed a batch of applications filed against a Bihar government policy which allows artificial bifurcation of homogenous stretches of river bed in terms of sand mining.

A bench headed by NGT's judicial member S P Wangdi said that 'Bihar Sand Mining Policy, 2019' was in conformity with the directions given by the Supreme Court and the 'Sustainable Sand Mining Management Guidelines, 2016' in this regard.

On applicants' argument that while framing the policy, the state did not state the source of power under which it was published, the NGT said "this contention appears to have been made overlooking the obvious power of the State to make policies, pass orders, issue administrative rules, circulares, instructions etc. in exercise of its executive powers so long as those are not violative of the constitutional and statutory provisions."
The bench further said, "Upon consideration of the submissions, we find that the 2019 policy is in conformity with the directions of the SC and the 'Sustainable Sand Mining Management Guidelines, 2016'."
The applications had said, "Vide the said policy, the respondent no. 2 (...) have sought to artificially bifurcate identified units of the river in the garb of controlling exploitation imposing unreasonable restrictions in permitting one individual or entity to have only two blocks in violation of law."
It said that the 2019 policy was "in conflict with the 'Sustainable Sand Mining Guidelines, 2016" and an earlier decision of the SC as "it permitted division of river stretches in a district into contiguous blocks."