The Delhi High Court on Thursday stayed that the single bench order quashing Tata Steel's prospecting licence for mining iron ore in Chhattisgarh on the ground that it had not got environmental clearance.

A bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar passed the interim order on a petition filed by Tata Steel challenging the order of single bench which quashed the prospecting licence (PL) of the steel major.

With this interim order, Chhattisgarh Government can now process Tata's application for PL for mining iron ore. Chhattisgarh Government, which had granted PL to Tata Steel, also challenged the single bench judgement through its counsel Atul Jha in the High Court.

The division bench order came after Ministry of Environment and Forest submitted before the court that getting environmental clearance at initial stage is not mandatory and it can be taken at any stage before getting a license.

Senior advocate Arun Jaitley, appearing for the Tatas, contended that the single bench had quashed its prospecting licence on the ground that it had not got environmental clearance, which was not required at this stage, as getting PL was a preliminary stage.

The court, on February 20 while quashing the PL of Tata Steel, had said that a clearance under the Forest Act was mandatory before allowing any non-forest activities in a forest area and this was not considered by the Centre while granting the licence.