Bengaluru, May 26: A mining baron being probed in various cases of illegal mining in Karnataka has been ordered by an international arbitration tribunal in London to pay a comp-ensation of Rs 44 crore to a UAE-based firm through which he had supplied inferior quality iron ore to Pakistan.
The arbitration tribunal has passed two orders in the case of supplying inferior quality of iron ore to Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi, on the strength of forged quality certificates issued at Belekeri port in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka and Goa port.
The tribunal has ordered Twenty First Century Wire Rods Ltd owned by Vinod Goel, who faces various cases of illegal mining being probed by Special Investigating Team (SIT) in Karnataka, to pay compensation to Alsaa Petroleum and Shipping FZC based in the UAE. The case was also referred in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining.
Alsaa Petroleum had entered into a contract with Twenty First Century for supply of five shipments of 40,000 MT of iron ore to Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi. The first vessel with 39,240 MT of iron ore sailed off from the Belekeri port near Karwar in December 2009. However, Alsaa received a message from Pakistan Steel Mills that the cargo has been rejected because of inferior iron ore.
SGS Pakistan (quality confirmation certificate) confirmed that the certificate issued by SGS India was forged and fabricated. However, by then the second shipment of 39,470 MT had also left Goa port in January 2010 and that too was rejected by Pakistan Steel Mills. The issue was even raised in the Pakistan Parliament and, Pakistan Steel Mills, a state-owned company, terminated the contract with Alsaa.
Interestingly, in the two orders, the tribunal has asserted that the iron ore shipments despatched from Belekeri and Goa were not only sub-standard but also that they were illegally mined.
The Lokayukta report (Part-2) had stated this and recommended thorough investigation into the criminal acts committed by Vinod Goel in all his mining businesses. The report stated: “The supplier (Vinod Goel's firms) was supposed to supply the lumps from the Sri Hanuman Mines and Jantakal Enterprises. On verification at Tumakuru, Ballari and Goa, it is found that no permits were issued. This indicates that the export of iron ore lumps to Pakistan are from the illegal iron ore source. The iron ore lumps for export are either transported from Hanuman Mines or from the Jantakal Enterprises Mines or from any other unknown source illegally.”
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