Illegal mining: Sagayam discharged from probe panel

A division bench comprising justices TS Sivagnanam and G Jayachandran, on taking stock of the report submitted by the commission in July last, officially relieved Sagayam of the post. 

The 600-page report submitted to the court by the IAS officer had estimated a huge loss of Rs 1,11,000-crore in the illegal granite mining. 

However, the state government had trashed the report, claiming the loss was “erroneous and disputable” and rejected Sagayam’s recommendation for a CBI probe, which the high court is seized of.

Meanwhile, the bench on Friday dismissed a plea moved by PRP Granites seeking to permit it to carry out mining in locations other than Madurai and to export the granite. 

The petitioner had contended, based on a communication by a police officer to the RBI and the ports in Tamil Nadu seeking to freeze the accounts of the petitioner and not to permit export of granite by the firm from Madurai, that the RBI instead of freezing the accounts connected to its Madurai branch and export of granite mined out of Madurai, froze all the accounts of the company maintained across the country. 

The port authorities are refusing to permit export of granite even from locations outside Madurai, the plea said and added that due to such prohibition their entire businesses have been stalled for more than five years. 

However, when the bench sought to know the government’s stand, the state’s counsel submitted that since the authorities were unable to trace the granite source meant for export, they were not permitted inside the ports.

To this, the bench observed, “When even stolen gold jewellery is traced these days, can’t the authorities trace the source of the granites,” and slammed the failure of the state machinery for allowing illegal mining and transport of such granite from the closed mines of Madurai.