A six-year-old Supreme Court inquiry on rat-hole mines remains unresolved.

• The Supreme Court of India has asked the Union government about the operation of rat-hole mines in northeast hills without the “connivance” of officials.

• The Supreme Court’s inquiry was prompted by the rescue of 15 miners trapped in a rat-hole mine in East Jaintia Hills in 2018.

• The incident occurred four years after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned rat-hole mining and illegal coal transport in Meghalaya in April 2014.

• The NGT’s ban was triggered by the trapping of 30 coal workers in a rat-hole mine in Nongalbibra in South Garo Hill district of Meghalaya in July 2012.

• Despite the ban, the demand for illegally mined coal from cement manufacturing and thermal power plants in the northeast sustained and supported rat-hole coal mining.

• The Supreme Court agreed with the NGT’s conclusion that illegal and unscientific mining was not in the interest of the people of the area, the people working in the mines, or the environment.

• The court upheld an NGT direction to deposit ₹100 crores, paid out of the Meghalaya Environment Protection and Restoration Fund, to the Central Pollution Control Board for environmental restoration.