Supreme Court denies Vedanta Ltd export plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea of Vedanta Ltd to be allowed to export iron ore mined from Karnataka, saying the inability to sell cannot be a ground for exporting the mineral.

“Insofar as the statements made on behalf of Vedanta Limited are concerned, all we would like to observe, at this stage, is that the inability of Vedanta Limited to sell the output from its leases, as expressed, could very well be because of the pricing patterns adopted by it.

“Inability to sell on account of higher prices cannot be a ground for export of the mineral, at least at this stage of developments pursuant to the final (18.04.2013) order ,” a bench said.