In the last hearing, Vedanta appeared all set to get a clearance for bauxite mining in Niymagiri hills, a few metres away from their Rs 2,200-crore aluminium refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa. The Supreme Court reserved its verdict and asked the London-based company to commit to a share in local development. But today the court dismissed its petition saying it could not take “the risk” of handing such a national asset — the hills — to the company. Instead, it asked Vedanta’s Indian subsidiary Sterlite to come with a fresh proposal along with the Orissa government.

Ironically, although activists had been long campaigning for this and the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee had submitted a series of reports highlighting alleged environmental violations by the company, the judges cited the decision of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund — the largest pension fund in Europe — to divest its stake in Vedanta.

The stake is tiny, just 0.16% ($15.16 million) — the fund’s corpus is $359 billion — but the Norwegian decision was announced by its government earlier this month claiming that Vedanta “has caused serious damage to people and to the environment as a result of its economic activities.”

“It was very interesting for us to hear that the Supreme Court of India has referred to a small investment like ours,” said Gro Nystun, chairman of the Council of Ethics, Norwegian Government Pension Fund speaking to The Indian Express today from Oslo.

The purpose of the Norwegian fund is to invest parts of the large surplus generated by the Norwegian petroleum sector to hedge against future shocks in oil prices. In the last three years, it has developed ethical guidelines on environmental degradation, human rights violations and child labour. It has interest in 7,000 companies and systematically goes through every portfolio each month.

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