The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Government of Meghalaya to deposit the amount of Rs. 100 crore fine imposed on it by National Green Tribunals (NGT) for failing to curb illegal coal mining with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

A SupremeCourt bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and K M Joseph directed the stateadministration to hand over the illegally extracted coal to Coal India Limited(CIL) which will auction it and deposit the funds with the state government.

The benchalso allowed the mining operation to go on in the state on the privately andcommunity owned land subject to the permissions from the concerned authorities.

On January 4last, the NGT had fined the Meghalaya government and during the hearing, thestate government had admitted that a large number of mines were operatingillegally in the northeastern state.

In anincident of illegal coal mining, a total of 15 miners were trapped on December13 at Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya, about 3.7 km deepinside a forest when water from the nearby Lytein River gushed into it.

However,only two bodies have been recovered so far from the mine.

The topcourt, earlier refused to allow miners to transport extracted coal lying atvarious sites in Meghalaya.