Same Stakes, Opposite Reactions: How the Mining Amendment Fences In the States' Taxing Power

THE TRAPDOOR IN ENTRY 50, AND THE WALL AROUND ENTRY 49

The MMDR Amendment Act, 2026 does not openly overrule the Supreme Court. It does something subtler. It takes Parliament's power to regulate mineral development and uses it to fence in the States' power to tax. Whether that is lawful depends on which State List entry you are looking at, because the Constitution treats the two taxing entries very differently.

The rule as written Entry 54 of the Union List lets Parliament regulate mines and mineral development wherever it declares that to be in the public interest.

Entry 50 of the State List lets States tax mineral rights, but it carries its own limiting clause: the power is subject to limits Parliament imposes by law relating to mineral development. The framers deliberately built a trapdoor into this taxing power. Entry 49 of the State List, which lets States tax land, has no such clause.

It is a plain taxing power. In Mineral Area Development Authority v. SAIL (2024), the nine-judge Bench read this asymmetry closely:

• Royalty is not a tax, which overturned the 1990 India Cement position that had squeezed State levies for decades.
• States can tax mineral rights, but Parliament can limit that power in the public interest.
• Parliament cannot use Entry 54 to curtail the States' power to tax mineral-bearing land.

The rule as practised The amendment does three things at once and each stands on different constitutional ground:

1. Fresh taxes on mineral rights, allowed only on Union-prescribed conditions. This uses the Entry 50 trapdoor and so stands on the firmest footing. One live question remains: Entry 50 speaks of limits imposed by Parliament by law, yet the Act lets the Union government set the conditions. Whether that delegation satisfies the entry's text is genuinely unsettled.
2. Extending the Centre's reach to mineral-bearing lands. This walks straight into the wall the Court built around Entry 49. Here the statute is doing what MADA said Entry 54 cannot do.
3. Cancelling dues that were imposed but not collected. These are largely the past demands the 2024 ruling had revived. A legislature may change the legal basis on which a judgment rests, but it cannot simply set aside a judgment it dislikes. This is where the "statute overriding the Court" charge is sharpest.

Why identical stakes produced opposite responses On paper, Jharkhand (85%) and Odisha (80%) should be the loudest objectors.

Instead, Jharkhand's government warns that welfare schemes could suffer. Odisha's BJP-led government has refused an Opposition demand for a special Assembly session and insists its revenues are safe. Meanwhile Telangana, with only 11% dependence, has joined the non-NDA States heading to court.

Madhya Pradesh (41%) and Rajasthan (39%) have stayed silent. Fiscal dependence creates the stake, but political alignment decides whether a State turns that stake into a federal challenge. The constitutional design assumes each State will guard its own Seventh Schedule powers.

In practice, that guarding is partisan.