The government on Thursday argued in the Delhi High Court that steel and power firms cannot claim they were under-compensated for their infrastructure as they should not have made further investments once the Supreme Court cancelled coal block allocations in 2014.
The Coal Ministry contended as per the Apex Court ruling of 2014, the companies had to hand over the mines on March 31, 2015, and at that time there was no proposal to auction them. The arguments were made by the ministry before a Bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva which was hearing pleas by various steel and power firms, including Jindal, GVK Power, Jayaswal Neco, Prakash Industries and Utkal Coal, who have alleged under-compensation by the government for their mining infrastructure and land. The court reserved its verdict and directed the government and the companies to give by April 27 written submissions of any further points they want to make on the issue. The ministry, represented by Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain and central government standing counsel Akshay Makhija, contended that the land on which they were located cannot be used for any other purpose.