Granite scam: Union Minister M K Alagiri's son Durai Dayanidhi surrenders before court

After being on the run for four months in an alleged illegal granite quarrying scam, Union Minister M K Alagiri's son Durai Dayanidhi surrendered before a court at nearby Melur on Friday, four days after he was granted anticipatory bail by the Madras High Court.

Accompanied by a battery of advocates and DMK workers, he paid a personal security of Rs 10,000, while two persons stood as personal surety, at the court of Judicial Magistrate Jaykumar.

The court directed him to appear daily from tomorrow until further orders before Keezhavalavur Police station near Melur, which had registered cases against him under various IPC sections, including 120(b) (criminal conspiracy), 447 (criminal trespass) and 420 (cheating), for allegedly quarrying illegally on government land.

Dayanidhi and 14 others got bail in the multi-crore granite quarrying scam, in which owners of various granite firms, including Olympus Granites in which he is a partner, had been named as accused.

The scam came to light when former Madurai Collector U Sagayam held an inquiry and submitted a report to the government, stating that illegal quarrying had cost the exchequer a loss of over Rs 16,000 crore.

Cases were registered based on complaints from Village administrative officers (VAOs) of Melur and keezhavalavu stations.

The VAOs had accused Dayanidhi and another partner Nagarajan of encroaching on land adjacent to the permitted area and causing loss of Rs 440 crore.

On December 10, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court had quashed a non-bailable arrest warrant issued by a lower court against Dayanidhi and granted him anticipatory bail.

Police had formed a special team to look out for Dayanidhi and alerted immigration authorities to help them in preventing him and other accused from leaving the country.

Various other granite firms also have faced the heat of the government crackdown following the findings by Sagayam.

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