Guwahati: The Meghalaya high court has directed the state government to comply with the recommendations of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and Supreme Court (SC) on illegal rat-hole coal mining within four weeks, LiveLaw reported.
A full bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee, Justice H.S. Thangkhiew and Justice W. Diengdoh in an order on May 24 observed that it is a matter of regret that orders passed by the Supreme Court and by the NGT continue to be violated and the directions issued are not implemented.
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“…it is necessary that the recommendations made in the preliminary report of May 23, 2022, be immediately taken note of and the relevant matters addressed,” the bench said.
“It is made clear that the time for implementation of the outstanding directions will not be counted from today or from the date of institution of the present suo motu proceedings, but from the relevant dates when such directions were issued. As such, all relevant authorities should get their acts in order and ensure the complete implementation of the directions within four weeks from date,” the court mentioned.
The HC order came after the submission of a preliminary report by Justice BP Katakey (retd.), which detected non-compliance with the NGT and SC orders on the issue.
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The high court had taken suo motu cognizance of the matter following a newspaper report and appointed justice Katakey in April this year to probe the issue and submit a report.