NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh within six weeks on a plea seeking an investigation into illegal sand mining cases and the termination of leases of entities involved in it. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar said a fine of Rs 20,000 will be imposed if the states don’t file counter affidavits in six weeks.

The bench listed the matter for November. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner M Alagarsamy, submitted that the petition dates back to 2018 and said the four states had not filed affidavits on the status of illegal sand mining despite notices being issued to them.

Bhushan said the petitioner has filed a short note on the matter about Tamil Nadu and the State should reply to the averments. After taking note of the submission, the bench asked Tamil Nadu to reply to the assertions made.