Chhattisgarh HC Upholds Refusal To Add 5 Years To Mining Lease For Renewal Litigation, Citing 30-Year Tenure Through 2031

The petitioner’s husband was granted a mining lease for ten years from 13 December 2001 to 12 December 2011.

An application for renewal, submitted before expiry, remained pending; the matter was remanded to the Collector in 2012.

Following the enactment of the Chhattisgarh Minor Mineral Rules, 2015, the lease was renewed under an agreement dated 20 March 2017 for the period from 13 December 2001 to 12 December 2031.

The petitioner sought a further extension of approximately five years, corresponding to the period spent in renewal proceedings and litigation, but the Director of Geology and Mining and the State Government rejected the claim for want of an enabling statutory provision.

She then brought this writ petition challenging the State Government’s order dated 2 September 2020.

The Court applied Rule 38(a) of the Chhattisgarh Minor Mineral Rules, 2015, under which the relevant pre-existing quarry leases were extended to the later of the prescribed date or a period of thirty years from the date of grant, subject to the rule’s conditions.

It also considered the earlier Chhattisgarh Minor Mineral Rules, 1996, under which the original lease had been granted and which the State relied on in describing the lease’s expiry.

The governing principle was that a lessee cannot obtain an extension beyond the tenure fixed under the applicable statutory scheme without a provision authorising exclusion of the relevant period or further extension.

The petitioner relied on Bhejraj Singh v. State of U.P., (2003) 1 SCC 726, concerning adjustment of a lease period affected by litigation; the Court held that it did not establish an entitlement to additional tenure in this case, which was governed by the applicable statutory scheme.

The Court found that Rule 38(a) had already been applied to provide the petitioner a thirty-year period calculated from the original grant, continuing the lease until 12 December 2031.

That statutory tenure included the intervening period spent in proceedings.

Because the petitioner identified no provision authorising that period to be added again or the lease to be extended beyond 2031, the Court declined to grant the requested additional term.

It held that Bhejraj Singh did not displace the governing statutory scheme in the circumstances of this case.

It found no jurisdictional error or illegality in the orders dated 28 January 2020 and 2 September 2020, and dismissed the writ petition; no further extension or other relief was granted.