The ban on mining of iron ore in Goa will continue as the Supreme Court today extended the time by a month for submission of the report by the panel which was asked to suggest the annual cap on volume of iron ore to be extracted.
"Unless we deliver judgement, no mining can resume. Moment the report comes, we will tell you about the judgement," a three-judge forest bench headed by Justice A K Patnaik said.
The bench posted the matter for March 24 and asked the apex court-appointed six-member committee to submit its final report by March 15.
It opened a document, which was submitted in a sealed cover, and said that besides appraising the court about the work, the panel has sought three months time to submit the final report.
However, the bench said it can only grant a month's time for placing of final report.
The monitoring committee, formed by the apex court to oversee e-auction of ore, also submitted its report and was granted a time of two weeks to submit the next report.
The apex court had on November 11, 2013 allowed e-auctioning of nearly 11.48 million tonnes of extracted iron ore lying unused in Goa for over a year after it halted mining operations in 90 mines there.
The apex court, which had on October 5 last year stopped mining, transportation and export of iron ore in Goa following a report of irregualrities by the Justice M B Shah Commission, had also ordered setting up of another six-member panel asking it to file its report by February 15, 2014, suggesting the annual cap on volume of iron ore to be extracted.
The six-member panel has one representative each from Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Department of Mining besides "an ecologoist, a geologist, a mineralogist and an expert on forest.
