Eight years after the Supreme Court delivered its landmark verdict on rampant illegal mining in Odisha, the state is still struggling to recover over ₹2,700 crore in mandated penalties. Expressing “serious displeasure” over the slow pace, the apex court has now issued a stern directive, setting a firm deadline of March 3, 2026, for the resolution of all pending recovery cases.
The Supreme Court bench has ordered the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court to constitute a dedicated bench to hear and expedite matters where recovery proceedings against defaulting mining leaseholders have been stalled due to interim stay orders. The court stressed that if final adjudication is not possible within the timeframe, the High Court must at least rule on the state’s applications to vacate the existing stays.
The Stalled Recovery
The pending amount of over ₹2,700 crore is a remnant of the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling, which found that an astonishing 215.5 million tonnes of iron and manganese ore, valued at ₹17,500 crore, were illegally extracted across districts like Keonjhar, Sundargarh, and Mayurbhanj between 2000–01 and 2010–11. The original order mandated full recovery of dues from 102 leaseholders involved in the violations.
Despite years of monitoring and multiple status updates, Odisha’s latest report to the SC, filed in October, confirmed the substantial pending amount, leading to the court’s sharp critique regarding the “mode and manner” of the implementation process. The fact that the recovery has been significantly impeded by legal stays highlights a critical bottleneck in the enforcement of major judicial mandates concerning resource governance.
Systemic Failure and Legislative Overhaul
The Supreme Court’s decisive action comes amid a larger state-level effort to overhaul its mineral governance framework, prompted by devastating revenue losses.
In November, the Odisha Cabinet approved the new Odisha Minerals (Prevention of Illegal Mining and Regulation of Trading, Transportation & Storage) Rules, 2025. This legislative revamp was necessitated in part by a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, which calculated a staggering revenue loss of ₹22,392 crore between 2015 and 2022 due to systemic issues like undervaluation and excess extraction of minerals.
The new rules aim to introduce scientific rigor and modern technology into the mining process, incorporating provisions for drone-based surveillance, scientific sampling, and an e-lottery system for granting leases.
While the state has shown progress in cracking down on minor mineral violations—having collected ₹126 crore in fines between 2022 and October 2025—the failure to recover the massive penalty from major leaseholders remains a political and economic liability. The Supreme Court’s firm deadline now places the onus squarely on the High Court to dismantle the legal blockades, ensuring that public resources illegally siphoned off are finally returned to the state exchequer.
