New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday held that a special court has powers to take cognizance under the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act (MMDRA) for offences like illegal mining and transportation of minerals and conduct a joint trial of accused of other crimes if permissible under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The findings on several legal issues relating to powers of a special court to take cognizance of offences under the MMDR Act have been rendered in a judgement by which the top court dismissed the appeals filed against the Karnataka High
Court's decision.
The High Court had refused to quash the criminal proceedings against some persons accused of transporting and exporting iron ore without the permission of the Forest Department and the Department of Mines
and Geology.
The iron ore involved in the transactions is alleged to have been removed from the Mining Lease at Kallahari Village, Bellary and it was alleged to have been stocked in an unauthorized stockyard without bulk permits and later transported allegedly causing a loss of Rs 3.27 crore to the state exchequer.
A bench of justices D Y Chandrachud, Vikram Nath, and B V Nagarathna dealt with various legal objections raised by Pradeep S Wodeyar, Managing Director of Canara Overseas Limited and Lakshminarayan Gubba, who is a director of the said company, and others against whom the cognizance of offences was taken by the special court.
Dealing with the issue of cognizance, the bench said that a special court should take cognizance of the offence upon committal of the case from the Magisterial court.
"The Special Court has the power to take cognizance of offences under MMDR Act and conduct a joint trial with other offences if permissible under Section 220 CrPC. There is no express provision in the MMDR Act which indicates that Section 220 CrPC does not apply to proceedings under the MMDR Act," it said.
"The Special Court does not have, in the absence of a specific provision to that effect, the power to take cognizance of an offence under the MMDR Act without the case being committed to it by the Magistrate under Section 209 CrPC. The order of the Special Judge dated 30 December 2015 taking cognizance is therefore irregular," Justice Chandrachud said in the 81-page judgement.