Sagayam report based on presumption: Granite body

When a PIL in this regard came up before the first bench of the Madras High Court comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan on Thursday, the Federation contended that when the total value of India’s granite exports for 17 years worked out to a mere Rs 52,000 crore, how can the notional loss suffered by illegal granite mining in Madurai district alone worked out to Rs 1 lakh crore. 

The federation which is a registered body in Karnataka with 1,200 members also submitted that though as per national and international standard only 10 to 15 per cent of the total quarried granite would be sale-worthy, the legal commissioner had calculated on the premise that about 80 per cent of the granite was sale-worthy. 

Senior Counsel P Wilson appearing on behalf of the federation, also sought to implead government agencies like Geological Survey of India, Indian Bureau of Mines, National Institute of Rock Mechanics to ascertain the exact loss and that the court should not proceed merely based on the legal commissioner’s reports.

Advocate General of Tamil Nadu R Muthukumaraswamy, said the state government is yet to take any decision in this regard since it has written to the Centre to find out as to what exactly was the value and loss. On receiving the inputs, a final report would be filed in the court, he said. 

The bench then posted the matter to January 11, 2017 for further hearing. The first bench on September 11, 2014 had appointed IAS officer U Sagayam as legal commissioner to go into the violations and illegal mining in Madurai district raised in a PIL filed by social activist KR Traffic Ramaswamy.