The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Vedanta Ltd’s plea seeking export of iron ore in Karnataka.
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The apex court, which heard the plea filed by the Karnataka Iron and Steel Manufacturers’ Association, seeking intervention to stop state-owned National Mineral Development Corp. The committee had denied permission to export iron ore. The diversified natural resources group had contested a court-appointed monitoring panel’s decision to disallow the company from exporting iron ore.
The public sector undertaking had also told the court that “despite the price being higher in Karnataka than in Chhattisgarh, the cost of landing in Karnataka is lower than in Chhattisgarh”.
However, responding to Vedanta Group’s appeal to refer the case to the High Court for adjudication, the Supreme court declared that that it “doesn’t find any reason to allow export of iron ore for now”.
Under dual pricing, NMDC sells iron ore at different prices in different states.
While the apex court allowed resumption of mining in April 2013, it enforced an annual cap of 30 million tonnes besides the exports were also banned.
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Not accepting the CEC stand, the bench said, “While it is correct that the special dispensation granted to NMDC by this court can not continue in perpetuity and the regulatory measures prescribed by this court for other leaseholders must also apply to NMDC, the working of its leases by NMDC under the special dispensation, by itself, can not be a legitimate ground for not resorting to a dual price mechanism if the same is dictated by market forces”. A directive to the monitoring committee to fix a base price for iron ore was also rejected.
