PANAJI: The state government will be filing supporting affidavits in the Supreme Court in the 20-year-old case for early resumption of mining operations, chief minister Pramod Sawant told TOI on Thursday.“I have studied the mining matter and we will decide now how to file a reply in the Supreme Court,” Sawant said.Sawant, who left for Delhi on Thursday evening, said he would also raise the issue of resumption of mining activities in the state with Prime Minister Narendra Modi “if time permits”.“I am not going with any specific agenda to meet the Prime Minister. It is a courtesy visit. I am likely to meet the Prime Minister on Friday,” Sawant, who is on his first official visit after he was sworn in as the chief minister on Tuesday, said.Sawant, who represents Sakhali constituency that falls in the mining belt, had told TOI in an exclusive interview that he would take up the resumption of mining operations on a priority basis. “It is on my mind…I have seen the suffering and I have suffered too,” he had said.Mining operations in Goa came to a halt on March 16, 2018 after the Supreme Court cancelled all the 88 leases.The Supreme Court has agreed to hear shortly an appeal filed by a mining company challenging a 1987 law that abolished mining concessions granted by the Portuguese.Sawant said the mining ministry has filed a “positive affidavit” in the Supreme Court seeking an early hearing of these appeals filed in 1998.The mining companies had filed the appeals after the high court of Bombay at Goa had dismissed their petitions challenging the Goa, Daman and Diu (Abolition and Declaration of Mining Leases) Act, 1987.Under the Portuguese Colonial Mining Law, the appellants were granted mining concessions, which were converted into mining leases under the abolition act. In the appeal filed before it, the Supreme Court has to decide the constitutional validity of the provisions of the abolition act.The Goa Mining People’s Front (GMPF) had urged the state government to file supporting affidavits in the matter for the early resumption of mining activities in the state.Late chief minister Manohar Parrikar had sent multiple letters to the ministry of mines emphasising on the social-economic crisis prevalent in Goa due to stoppage of mining and proposing a legislative cure for early resumption of mining through appropriate amendment to the abolition act.

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