Haryana mining cases are likely to get priority hearing in the Supreme Court as senior advocate Harish Salve, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae in matters relating to projects in forest areas, today pleaded for fast-tracking their disposal. Appearing before the SC’s new Forest Bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu, Salve submitted a list of 10 issues, including Haryana mining, which required immediate attention. Salve did not give any reasons for pushing these cases. At the last hearing on October 8, Haryana had pleaded with the previous Forest Bench headed by Justice JS Khehar to officially allow some mining activity in the state to meet the requirements of the construction sector on the lines of the practice in Rajasthan. Doing this would also help deal with the menace of illegal mining, the state had submitted. Among the other cases on Salve’s priority list are the need for setting up a regulatory authority for the mining sector, utilisation of the funds collected from the mining sector by the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Board (CAMPA) and matters relating to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). Adding another case to the priority list, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi said the government wanted vacation of the SC stay on the clearance given to 140 projects by the National Board for Wildlife (NBW) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Bench headed by Justice Khehar had stayed the clearance on August 25, noting that the reconstitution of the NBW’s standing committee did not appear to be in consonance with the Wildlife Act, 1972. It had made the remark while hearing a plea by an NGO challenging the July 22, 2014, notification reducing the representation of NGOs on the panel from five to one. Rohatgi pleaded for expediting the hearing as the case had held up clearance of several development projects by the board. On October 8, the SC had ordered the prosecution of Haryana officials who had turned a blind eye to rampant illegal mining in the state in violation of the court’s ban on mining in the Aravalli hills region. It had observed that it was evident from the photographs provided by the PIL petitioner, NGO Bandhua Mukti Morcha, and the report of the SC-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) that illegal mining was going on in Haryana on a large scale. The Bench, which included Justices J Chelameswar and AK Sikri, asked Haryana’s Additional Advocate-General (AAG) Narender Hooda to prepare a list of officers responsible for preventing illegal mining and hand it over to the PIL petitioner. It asked the petitioner to pinpoint the officers who had failed to check such activities so that they could be prosecuted under SC monitoring. What’s on agenda Haryana has pleaded to officially allow some mining activity in the state to meet the requirements of the construction sector Need to set up a regulatory authority for the mining sector, utilisation of funds collected from the mining sector by the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Board and matters relating to Nabard The government wants vacation of the SC stay on the clearance given to 140 projects by the National Board for Wildlife headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi