Deo urges governor to use powers to stop states
In the wake of the Supreme Court judgment in the Vedanta mining case, Union tribal affairs minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo has called upon governors of nine states to invoke their special constitutional powers to stop the state governments from allowing the companies getting into mining activities in the Schedule V (tribal) areas. Mr Deo also said that he favoured cooperatives or societies with major ownership by the tribals to engage into mining activities in the Schedule V areas.
Mr Deo also took exception to the fact that the state-owned mineral corporations are exploiting the mineral wealth by overlooking the constitutional provisions. In a letter to Mr S.C. Jamir, governor of Orissa, Mr Deo has noted “...once disinvestment takes place (in state owned mineral corporations), the need for adherence to constitutional safeguards will not only get diluted but thrown to the winds”.
“...it has become almost a trend among the state governments to create so called state government owned corporations to circumvent the constitutional safeguards. This threat looms large on us and it must be stopped,” Mr Deo stated in the letter to Orissa governor in the wake of the Vedanta judgment.
The minister also stated “I may explore the possibility of examining the very illegality of the Vedanta mining case in Orissa”.
In hard-hitting letters to the governors, the Union minister has explained the occasion for addressing the letters to them for “situations in several sensitive areas which have assumed alarming proportions rendering governance for all practical purposes marred to an extent that in certain areas the governance has come to a standstill by upsurge of extremist activities”.
The minister has reminded the governors of their special constitutional powers to stop the state governments from entering into any agreement with companies which violate constitutional provisions (Article 244).
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