Reddy’s mines destroyed forest areas: AG

The apex court is hearing a petition by the Andhra Pradesh government that continuance of OMC in the area would lead to “irreparable loss and injury besides causing heavy burden on state’s exchequer”.

The state government had challenged an Andhra Pradesh High Court order allowing the transportation of 1.95 lakh tonnes of iron ore as contrary to law. It had argued that the permission from the High Court “amounts to putting a premium on illegal mining”.

“It is amazing how the High Court decided to eschew the CEC report on the grounds that CEC had exceeded its jurisdiction,” Vahanvati contended.

The CEC was constituted to inquire into allegations in a writ petition filed by Tapal Ganesh of Bellary against the OMC over the alleged illegal activity in violation of the Forest Conservation Act.

The Andhra Pradesh government had issued a government order prohibiting mining after the Central Empowered Committee recommended stopping of mining by the company in the area.

“The forests have all been obliterated. The transportation of the iron ore places a premium on dishonesty as the ore was mined not from the areas where mining was allowed,but from other areas,” the AG said.

OMC lawyer and senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi said “everybody was just ganging up against me (OMC)”.

“The CEC has taken it upon itself to conduct a report. The report was not called for,it was unwarranted,” he said,requesting the apex court to grant him permission to at least work two of the three mining leases given to him.

“I shall stop the lease where the boundaries have shifted and a road is alleged to have been constructed by me,but the other two leases have no encroachments,let me work them,” he pleaded with the Bench. The apex court has now given Rohtagi permission to place additional documents like maps to prove that he has indeed not encroached on the forest areas.

Illegal mining: SC seeks replies from MoEF,Karnataka,Andhra

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a reply on alleged lack of action from the government on a Lokayukta report against continued “illegal” mining along the inter-state border between Bellary district in Karnataka and Anantpur district in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

A three-judge Special Bench headed by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the state governments of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to file their responses by January 15,the next date of hearing.

The petition filed by a Karnataka-based group Samaj Parivartana Samudaya alleged that Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde had given his report “almost a year back”,but the government had chosen to ignore it.

“The failure of the states to control the illegal mining has led to large-scale destruction both of forest land as well as non-forest land and adversely affected the livelihood of local people. Both the Ministry of Environment and Forest and the Ministry of Mines have not exercised enough checks and balances to curtail the illegal mining in the two states. The process of de-reservation was done in an ad-hoc and haphazard manner which led to large-scale irregularities,including loss of valuable forest land,” the petition alleged.

“Justice Santosh Hegde’s report had given specific instances wherein the government of Karnataka illegally de-reserved large tracks of areas,including reserve forest,for mining by private companies to mine iron ore,manganese,chromite despite there being specific government decision not to de-reserve these areas,” said the petition filed through counsel Ritwick Dutta. ENS