Six years back Sajjan Jindal was in a bind. Although JSW Steel had edged past Tata Steel to become the country’s second biggest steel producer, his joy was short-lived. With the Supreme Court ordering the suspension of mining in Karnataka in July 2011, supplies of iron ore were badly hit.Without captive ore, Jindal’s steel plants, which needed 16 million tonnes of ore were starving; the Vijayanagar plant was running at less than a third of its 10 mtpa capacity. In September, the court asked NMDC, the state-owned miner, to annul all long-term contracts with steelmakers in Karnataka and start selling only through auctions.By end-2012, mining had resumed in Karnataka. But by then the chairman and managing director of the JSW Group was up against a downtrend in steel prices.