Plea in illegal granite mining dismissed

Noting that the relief sought is premature, a division bench of Justices TS Sivagnanam and G Jayachandran dismissed the plea moved by the Federation of Indian Granite and Stone Industry to constitute a committee comprising representatives from the Union Ministry of Commerce and Department of Geology and Mining as it disputed the assessment made by Sagayam about the notional loss owing to illegal granite mining in Madurai. 

The federation in its plea had submitted that when the total value of India’s granite exports over a period of 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 work out to Rs 1 lakh crore? 

Alleging that such astronomical figures had been arrived at based on unscientific data, the Karnataka based federation, had submitted that only 10% and 15% of the total quarried granite would be sale-worthy and though this is the national and international standard, Sagayam had proceeded on the premise that about 80% of the granite was sale-worthy.”