RANGANATHAN - (1.) THE Judgment of the court was delivered by THE''DramatisPersonae"
(2.) ALL these matters are in the nature of offshoots of a basic con- troversy raised in W.P. No. 14116 of 1984 which was "disposed of" by the orders of this court dated 30/04/1987 and 6/10/1987. The parties are now seeking certain clarifications and directions in relation to the orders passed by this court in the above writ petition. There have been several subsequent developments having an impact on the issue originally brought to this court in the Writ Petition (W.P.) and, at present, the matter has become very complicated and involves the interests of a large number of parties. To give a cogent narration of the necessary facts, it is best to start with an enumeration of the various parties with whom we are concerned in the matters which are being disposed of by this judgment. The writ petition as well as the connected matters arise out of applications for grant of rights for the mining of chrome ore or chromite in the State of Orissa. Chrome ore is one of the minerals specified in the First and Second Schedules to, and not a "minor mineral" within the meaning of S. 3(f) of, the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957. The right to grant mining rights in respect of this mineral is vested in the State government, subject, as we shall see later, to control by the Union of India. The State of Orissa (S.G.) and the Union of India (C.G.) are, therefore, the primary respondents in this litigation. On the other side are ranged a number of applicants for the mining rights we have referred to above. These are: (1 Indian Metals and Ferro-Alloys Limited (IMFA); (2 Ferro Alloys Corporation Limited (FACOR); (3 Orissa Cements Limited (OLC); (4 Orissa Industries Limited (ORIND); (5 Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC); (6 Industrial Development Corporation of Orissa Ltd. (IDCOL); and (7 Shri Mantosh Aikath. Of the above, the first four are companies in the private sector, the next two are public sector corporations owned substantially by the State of Orissa and the last, a private individual. The present controversy The principal question for decision before us is as to whether all or any of the various parties referred to above are entitled to obtain 97 (Ranganathan, J.) leases for the mining of chrome ore (hereinafter referred to as 'MLs') and, if so, to what extent. In particular, we are concerned with an area consisting of five blocks referred to in para 8 of the W.P. to which reference will be made later. The controversy primarily turns round applications made in respect of these blocks by IMFA, FACOR, Aikath and OCL. ORIND also lays claim to mining rights in respect of a portion of these blocks. It has filed a special leave petition which is separately numbered as Special Leave Petition No. 8574 of 1989 and is directed against an order dated 7/04/1989 passed by the Orissa government rejecting an application made by the company on 5/07/1971. FACOR has also preferred Special Leave Petition No. 5163 of 1988 from an order of the High court of Orissa dated 11/11/1987 dismissing a writ petition filed against an order of rejection by the S.G. of an application made by it on 18/07/1977 for grant of a ML which was confirmed by the C.G.
(3.) AS already mentioned, this court 'disposed' of W.P. No. 14116 of 1984 by its order of 30/04/1987. We shall have to consider this and several other orders passed by this court in the course of the hearing more closely but a brief reference may be made here to the resultant effect thereof. When this court found that there were a large number of applications for MLs over varying extents of land in the areas in question, this court decided that the respective merits of the applications could not be gone into by this court but that they should be considered by a responsible officer of the C.G. Accordingly, by the orders above referred to, this court referred the entire controversy to the secretary to the government of India in the Ministry of Mines (Shri B.K. Rao, "Rao", for short) for a detailed consideration of the claims of the various parties. When the matter went to Rao, OMC and IDCOL also put forward claims that the public sector units in the State of Orissa were entitled to the grant of mining rights in the State to the exclusion of all private parties inasmuch as there was a reservation in their favour by an appropriate notification issued by the State government. The other parties objected to the intervention of the OMC and IDCOL at, what they alleged was, a belated stage of the proceedings. However, on applications made by OMC and IDCOL, this court directed that the claims of these two public sector undertakings would also be examined by Rao. Eventually Rao, after considering the claims of all parties, reduced his conclusions in the form of a report dated 1/02/1988. In his report, Rao accepted the claim of reservation made on behalf of the OMC and the IDCOL. Nevertheless it appears that, bearing in mind certain interim orders passed by this court in the various applications made to it during the pendency of the writ petitions, Rao came to the 98 conclusion that only three of the parties other than the two public sector undertakings should be granted leases to the extent mentioned by him. Broadly speaking, Rao accepted partially the claims of IMFA, FACOR and Aikath. He rejected the claims made by GRIND and OCL. He accepted the claim of the public sector undertakings but he recom- mended for them leases in respect of only the balance of the lands left, after fulfilling the claims of the others which he had accepted. Applications have now been filed before us which, inter alia, seek directions on Rao's report. There has been a good deal of contest before us as to the precise legal character of the report submitted by Rao. One suggestion is that Rao was nothing more than a commissioner appointed by the court to examine the claims of the various parties and to submit a detailed report thereon. It is submitted that this report having been received we should pass such orders thereon as we may consider appropriate. A second approach suggested is that the Rao report should be taken to be the decision of the central government, which it is now for the State government to implement, leaving it open to any aggrieved party to take such appropriate proceedings as may be available to them in law for successfully challenging the findings reached by Rao. A third line of argument which has been addressed before us, particularly by the State of Orissa, the OMC and the IDCOL, is that Dr Rao's report suffers from a fundamental defect in that he has completely ignored the reservation made by the State government in favour of the public sector. According to them, Rao was not right in suggesting the grant of leases to any of the other parties and should have simply left it to the State to exploit the mines in public sector, including inter alia, the OMC and IDCOL. A fourth stance taken up by the State government may also be mentioned here. The learned Advocate General for the State made a statement before us that, without prejudice to a contention that the Rao report suffered from the fundamental defect referred to above, the State government was prepared to abide by the findings of Rao provided this court decides to accept the same in toto without any modifications. He clarified that this is not because they think the Rao report is correct. On the other hand they have got several objections to the validity and correctness of Dr Rao's report. However, having regard to the interim orders passed by this court and having regard to the fact that what Rao has done is virtually to implement various orders passed by this court , during the pendency of the writ petition, the State government, without prejudice to its contentions in relation to, the Rao report, is prepared to abide by it. However, the learned Advocate General said, the State Government wish to make it clear that if, for some reason, this court does not accept the Rao report in toto, then the State government would like 99 to put forward their contentions against the report of Dr Rao. In that event the State government should be given the liberty to attack Dr Rao's report and urge all contentions that are open to it in respect of the grant of mining leases relating to chrome ore in the State of Orissa. The above stance understandably, is not acceptable to OCL and GRIND or, indeed, even to OMC and IDCOL who have got nothing at the hands of Dr Rao. IMFA and FACOR are substantially satisfied with the report given by Dr Rao (except for certain minor contentions which they are prepared to give up for the present, with liberty to make representations to the State government) but they also wish to make it clear that, in case the Rao report is not to be accepted by this court, they would also like to put forward all their contentions so that their case may not go by default. In that event, in particular, they would like to attack the reservation plea urged by the S.G., OMC and IDCOL both as belated as well as on merits. Aikath's submission is that he is a small operator who discovered the mines and that Rao's recommendation for the grant of a ML in his favour in respect of a small extent of land should not be disturbed by us. We have only broadly set out here the attitudes of the various parties to the Rao report and shall discuss their contentions later in detail. In the light of these various contentions, we have to determine the legal character of the Rao report and decide whether the findings of Rao are to be given effect to in toto or are to be modified and, if so, in what respects.;