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Apex court directs CEC to probe illegal mining in State

Plundering of resources:According to the petitioner, notifications on de-reserving forest areas in Karnataka have resulted in illegal and uncontrolled mining .

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Central Empowered Committee to probe the illegal mining in Bellary and other forest regions of Karnataka and submit a report in six weeks.

A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Jusice K.S. Radhakrishnan gave this direction to the CEC after counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Samaj Parivartan Samudaya, a non-governmental organisation, mentioned the matter and sought urgent directions.

He alleged that rampant illegal mining was going on in Karnataka and the same had been recorded in a detailed report of Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde. The court in November 2010 had issued notice to the Centre, and the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka Governments on a petition filed by Samaj Parivartana Samudaya of Dharwad highlighting the illegal mining in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh with the alleged connivance of politicians.

The petitioner pointed out that Karnataka had issued notifications de-reserving forest areas and as a result there had been illegal and uncontrolled mining in the area. It was pointed out that over 10 hectares of forest land had completely vanished from the area which had now become the ground for illegal mining. It alleged that the entire de-reservation exercise was done in contravention of the Forest Conservation Act.

The petitioner said that prior to the November 2010 order issuing notice, a composite survey committee had submitted its interim findings pointing out certain discrepancies in the lease maps. It failed to notice the violations recorded by a high-level committee which concluded that a major part of the ore extracted supposedly from the Obulapuram Mining company lease holding of 68.5 hectares in Andhra Pradesh was actually extracted from Karnataka illegally.

The petitioner wanted a direction to take action against those who had violated the law and to recover the illegal wealth; direct immediate stoppage of all mining in forest areas in both Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which are in violation of the Forest Conservation Act and various orders of the Supreme Court and to stay the order issued by the Forest Settlement Officer on May 24, 2010 converting forest land in Ramamalai forest range into revenue land and stop rampant illegal mining in 265 acres of forest land in that range.

A direction to stay all the mining leases operating in the Bellary reserve forest area on either side of the Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh inter-State boundary including the six mining leases, of which three belonged to the Bellary brothers was also sought.

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