In a temporary relief to mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd., the High Court of Karnataka on Thursday directed the State government to not take coercive action against the company based on the newly enacted law. The law empowers the State to collect Forest Development Fee (FDE) of 12 per cent, with retrospective effect from 2008, on the sale price of minerals sold by private mining companies. The State, against this verdict, had moved the Supreme Court, which had stayed the order of refunding of the deposited FDT. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice Ravi Malimath passed the interim order on a petition filed by the company, which had questioned the constitutional validity of the Karnataka Forest (Amendment) Act, 2016. Meanwhile, the State amended the law changing the term as FDE instead of FDT and expanding FDE to private mining lease holders as well, fixed FDE at 12 per cent, payable with retrospective effect from August 16, 2008.

Source: The Hindu August 12, 2016 04:07 UTC