Vedanta and its subsidiaries have been accused of numerous violations of the law. Apart from various legal cases against it because of its Lanjigarh smelter and its Niyamgiri project, mining researcher Roger Moody has produced the following list of just some of the cases against the company.
2006
May 2006: Vedanta fined 50,000 Rupees by Delhi High Court, after Orissa environmental activist, Prafulla Samantara wins right to testify to the to company’s  alleged illegal construction of its Jharsaguda smelter
2007
May 2007: Highly respected VV Giri Institute, Delhi, issues report claiming most of labour-related guarantees made by Sterlite on privatisation of BALCO have been violated
March 2007: Orissa State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) directs Vedanta to halt all construction activities at its Jharsaguda smelter site, since it has not obtained environmental clearances [The Hindu, 11/3/07]
May 2007: Armenian Government fines Vedenta subsidiary Sterlite Gold a preliminary penalty of US$46 million for numerous violations of its contract at Zod gold operations [Mining Journal 11/5/07]
October 2007: India’s Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) indicts Balco for its “deplorably callous and casual attitude” to environmental appraisal of the consequences of mining bauxite in Chhattisgarh state [Livemint, Delhi, 31/12/07]
November 2007:  Norwegian Government’s pension fund indicts Vedanta as “grossly unethical”, after two year assessment of company’s activities, primarily in India and Zambia. The Council on Ethics report says:
“In cases of severe unethical activities, we try to use our ownership to make the companies change their behaviour; however, the violations of Vedanta are so serious and we don’t see any initiative from the company to change its past record.”
2008
November 2008: while granting a permit to Sterlite to expand its Tuticorin copper smelter,  the MOEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) finds the company’s final Environmental Impact Assessment “inadequate”, with failures in assessing continuing ambient air pollution (SO2 and NOx) inter alia [MoEF report]
November 2008: Madras High Court orders immediate halt to what it calls Vedanta/Malco’s “illegal mining” of bauxite on the Kolli Hills, Tamil Nadu  – a lease which expired ten years earlier in 1998
2009
February 2009: Police register a case against Anil Agarwal and Vedanta company officers, for allegedly illegally cashing a 12 billion dollar bank guarantee provided for construction of its Jharsaguda smelter township [Times of India, 28/2/09]
March 2009: Delhi High Court delivers judgment that Anil Agarwal and other officers of Sterlite Industries must “pre-deposit” US$70 million pending further hearing on findings by the state Enforcement Directorate of India’s Foreign Exchange Management Act, that Sterlite had illegally acquired and transferred around US$420 million [at today’s rate] of foreign currency in 2004 [Mines and Communities, 2/6/09]
July 2009: The MOEF’s EAC (Expert Appraisal Committee- mining) finds that Vedanta subsidiary, Balco, has violated basic rules on resettlement of families evicted from its Bodai-Daldali bauxite mine in Chhattisgarh; and that, whatever remediation the company proposes or puts into place, it must not be allowed to expand its operations at the mine,  in light of “the past records of the company” [EAC minutes, Delhi 2-3/6/09]
July 2009: Orissa State Pollution Control Board  issues show-cause notice to Vedanta Aluminium Ltd for numerous violations of water and air pollution control acts at its Jharsaguda smelter [New Indian Express, 23/7/09]
September 2009: Nine year old Aakash Naik wins Order from Bombay High Court that Vedanta must immediately cease mining at two pits in Advalpal, north Goa, due to unacceptable pollution
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