New Delhi The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the shipping ministry, the governments of West Bengal and Orissa to amicably resolve the Kolkata Port limit expansion issue within two weeks.

The Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) and the West Bengal government have challenged the Orissa HC’s judgement that scrapped the notifications issued by the ministry of shipping on October 22, 2010, altering the Kolkata Port limits and by the port trust on November 10 giving effect to the earlier one.

New Delhi GAIL India has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity order that upheld the PNGRB’s decision to accept the technical bid of the Gujarat State Petronet-led consortium for laying the R5,000-crore Mallavaram-Bhopal-Bhilwara-Vijaipur gas pipeline project.

GSPL, which currently operates about 2,000 km of pipelines in Gujarat, has a 52% stake in the consortium, with Indian Oil Corp holding 26%, and Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp having 11% each. The grouping had emerged as the lowest bidder for the project, ousting GAIL.

New Delhi Adani refused power supply to GUVNL due to rising coal prices

The Supreme Court on Monday admitted Adani Power’s appeal against the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity’s order asking it to supply power to state utility Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) at an agreed price of R2.35 per unit for 25 years. Adani Power had, in December 2009, terminated its 2007 power purchase agreement (PPA) with the state utility for supply of 1,000 mw power on the grounds that it would not be possible to supply electricity at the earlier agreed tariff of R2.35 per unit due to high coal prices.

New Delhi The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to Delhi’s gas utility Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) and the Centre on a petition challenging the Delhi High Court judgment that held that petroleum and natural gas regulator PNGRB has no jurisdiction to fix rates or regulate gas tariffs.

A bench headed by Justice KS Radhakrishnan sought reply from the ministry of petroleum and natural gas and IGL on PNGRB plea alleging that “the HC failed to note that it had not fixed the maximum retail price but only sought to fix the network tariff and compression tariff charges representing cost of transportation which are completely different. The latter is only one of the many components of the former’’.

New Delhi The Supreme Court has transferred to itself a petition filed by a leading chewing tobacco manufacturer against the ban on sale of gutka and paan masala.

Gutka manufacturers have moved various high courts questioning the constitutional validity of the notifications issued by various state government. The manufacturers are insisting that gutka cannot be treated and regulated as ‘food’ as it has “no nutritional value” and highlight the “discriminatory nature” of the ban that has brought their business to a “complete halt”.

New Delhi The Supreme Court on Monday asked Mahanadi Coalfields to supply 2,84,750 tonne of coal to Jindal Stainless’ 1.6 million tonne-integerated stainless steel plant in Orissa.

A Bench, headed by Justice KS Radhakrishnan, continued its earlier order asking the Mahanadi Coalfields' to supply 25% of the agreed quantity, as per the coal supply agreement of February 2009, to Jindal Stainless’ plant till the disposal of the petition filed by the Ratan Jindal's firm before the Orissa High Court. JSL's entitlement under the February 2009 contract was 11,39,000 metric tonne per annum.

New Delhi The Supreme Court has rejected a salt manufacturer's plea, thus paving the way for its eviction from over 16,000 acre of the Kandla Port Tust (KPT) land in the Kutch region of Gujarat.

A bench headed by Justice DK Jain dismissed as withdrawn the Shree Krishna Salt Industries' (SKSI) plea seeking stay on the Delhi High Court's May order that directed the Estate Officer as well as a trial court in Gujarat to complete eviction proceedings against the firm and others within three months. However, it asked the HC to consider the firm's plea on merits.

New Delhi Industry body Ficci has told the Supreme Court that the auction method (i.e. a market-based system) adopted in allocation of natural resources can “indeed be successful in effectively distributing natural resources” if conducted openly and fairly.

Ficci, in its reply to the Presidential Reference in the 2G spectrum case, said the most countries favour the auction process in allocation of scarce natural resources - mines and minerals, coal, petroleum, natural gas, land, spectrum, water, forest and forest produce - and even in India a preference over the years seems to be emerging in favour of the auction process .

New Delhi The Supreme Court on Friday asked former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa and the country's third-largest steel producer, JSW Steel, to file documents to prove their innocence in the Karnataka mining scam.

The court said it will pass an order next week on the Central Empowered Committee's (CEC) recommendations, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged massive illegal mining activities in Karnataka and the roles of Yeddyurappa and two companies — JSW Steel and Adani Enterprises — in the scandal.

New Delhi The Supreme Court on Monday sought replies from the Centre, ONGC and others on a PIL seeking a CBI probe into the $8.48-billion Cairn-Vedanta deal, besides a direction to the government to cancel its approval for the deal on the ground that the country would lose over Rs one lakh crore in the process.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had on January 24 granted final approval to Vedanta Resources’s acquisition of a majority stake in Cairn India for $8.48 billion.