The Hindu : New Delhi News : Supreme Court sets deadline on action plan for illegal mining

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Supreme Court sets deadline on action plan for illegal mining

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, MARCH 29. Expressing serious concern over illegal mining operations being carried on in the eco-sensitive Aravali Hills in Gurgaon district of Haryana despite a ban, the Supreme Court today directed the State Government to put in place an action plan within three weeks for implementation to stop such illegal mining.

A Bench comprising Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice Tarun Chatterjee while passing this order on a public interest petition from environmentalist lawyer M.C. Mehta directed the State to impound vehicles carrying the crushed material from illegal mining areas and to cancel/suspend the licence of stone crushing units, which take material from such illegal mines.

The Bench noted that in spite of various directions issued by the Court earlier, illegal mining was going on unabated. Earlier, the Solicitor-General, G.E. Vahanvati, submitted that the Government was considering an action plan formulated by the Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon proposing a three-pronged strategy to check illegal mining by taking steps at three levels -- the source, transport and consumers.

Taking on record the affidavit, the Bench said that the cases of prosecution against illegal miners had been brought to its notice but from the record it was established that the violators were given only minor punishments. The judges pointed out that the minimum sentence provided in the Environment Protection Act for such offences should be five years, which could be extended to seven years.

The Bench said that besides the action plan it was necessary for the State Government to issue a mandatory certificate by the mining officer to vehicles carrying material from legal mining areas. It said a copy of the certificate should also to be supplied to the mine and crusher owners so that illegal mining activities could be completely stopped.

The Court also directed the State Government to give wide publicity to its order so that the persons involved in the illegal mining were put to public notice.

The Court directed the State Government to file a detailed affidavit by May 6 on implementation of its directions and posted the matter for further hearing on May 9.

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