Cancel three mining leases of Reddys,says SC panel

The 69-page report,filed before the Green Bench led by Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia,is the result of an extensive inspection conducted by the CEC following the Supreme Court’s orders on November 19,2010 as to whether any “mining was going on in the forest area of Bellary region”.

The court had directed the CEC to focus on six mining leases in the area,of which three,spanning 68.5 hectares,39.50 and 25.98 hectares,are owned by G Karunakara Reddy and Janardhana Reddy.

The remaining leases are operated by M/s Bellary Iron Ore Pvt Ltd,M/s Ananthapur Mining Corporation and M/s Mahabaleswarappa & Sons. All six have been found to be illegal. The court on Friday allowed the miners to file their responses to the report.

The illegalities committed by the Karnataka politicians-cum-mining magnates,the CEC found,ranged from mining outside approved lease areas,use of reserved forest for dumping,building five roads in the reserved forest,transport of minerals far in excess of what could have been extracted from the mining pits,only to name a few.

The 25.9-hectare lease,the report says,actually expired on December 13,2004,but the Andhra government “illegally” granted Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) an extension till April 25,2017.

“The mining done in the forest area after 2004 is therefore illegal and the value of the minerals extracted from the reserved forest after April 2004 should be recovered from the leaseholders based on the normative market value of the mineral extracted from the area,” the CEC recommended to the court.

In both the 39.5-hectare and 68.5-hectare leases the boundaries “differ materially” from what were approved under the Forest Conservation Act,1980,the report says. “The minerals extracted from the mining lease of 68.5 hectares of M/s OMC and 6.5 hectares of M/s AMC appears to be far in excess of what could have been extracted from these leases as per the size of the pits…. No effective steps were taken by the AP Mining Department to get this verified physically in the field.”

In fact,the core reason which led to these illegalities,the SC-appointed team said,is the fact that the state government officers turned a blind eye to the goings-on. An example of this lapse is how the Ananthapur Mining Corporation was granted mining lease after a gap of 17 years and the same company transported 11 lakh MT of iron ore without a permit from the Forest Department.