Dirty Coal is shown the red card in India

Greenpeace today celebrated the Supreme Court’s landmark decision cancelling 214 coal mining licences, and called the verdict a victory for the environment and the people of India against rampant corruption and crony capitalism rife in the resource extraction industry.

The court found that the application process for the licences was illegal and unconstitutional due to ‘arbitrariness, lack of transparency’ and ‘lack of objectivity.’ The landmark ruling cancels the licences of 214 coal blocks including Essar and Hindalco’s Mahan Coal block, and also ordered steep penalties for offending companies amounting to £100 million.

“This is a wake-up call for the Modi government. They came to power on an anti-corruption and economic growth agenda, but coal is too mired in corruption to meet their goal of delivering access to electricity to all and economic growth across the country. Today’s landmark ruling is a strong message from the highest court in the country to the government and industry that the laws of the land cannot be circumvented and disregarded.

And while coal is set to become more expensive, wind and solar energy are dropping rapidly in price. The government has a stark choice —whether to develop a pro-people, pro-green economic model, or stick with increasingly expensive, corrupt, dirty energy.” said Vinuta Gopal, Climate and Energy campaigner of Greenpeace India.  

On August 25th, the Court had declared that all licences allocated to companies between 1993 –2010 were illegal. In a subsequent hearing, Indian government’s top lawyer made a plea for 46 of illegal coal blocks to be spared cancellation as they were either operational or would soon become so. But today the court ordered operational coal mines to wind up within 6 months and that all the cancelled licenses must go through a fresh auctioning process.

Greenpeace believes that the Court’s ruling will spell the end of cheap coal in India with serious ramifications on the new government’s excessive reliance on coal power as the engine of economic growth. The forests of Mahan got a reprieve from the Supreme Court order today when the allocation to Essar and Hindalco was cancelled on grounds of illegality.

Forest communities in Madhya Pradesh and Greenpeace are jubilant as the Court ruled that the Mahan coal block be cancelled due to a lack of transparency when it was granted. Local campaigners and Greenpeace have been engaged in a long battle with the company over the proposed open cast coal mine, which would involve the destruction of half a million trees, rob over 50,000 people from 54 villages of their livelihoods, and destroy wildlife habitat.  

“Mahan forests are some of the richest forests in the country. Mining in Mahan would mean loss of livelihoods and rich biodiversity. The government should review the criteria on which coal blocks are allocated and spare the blocks in the forest areas.” said Gopal. 

Activists welcomed the new criteria proposed by the court and added that the new process must adhere to environmental laws and the Forest Rights Act. Modi’s government has dropped a lot of hints about speedy re-allocations and easing of environment regulations, but Greenpeace India demands that government not take dangerous short cuts to achieve higher short-term growth at the cost of India’s rich biodiversity and people’s rights.