Allahabad High Court passes order about mining

Allahabad: Taking a serious note of illegal mining being carried out in many parts of the state, the Allahabad High Court has directed that no person shall be permitted to excavate the minor minerals on the basis of the lease deeds or permission granted subsequent to May 31, 2012 by whatever name it may be called. Like renewal of the expired lease, granting fresh lease, right to excavate for the obstructed period and extension of the term of the lease.

Hearing a PIL filed by one Vijay Kumar Dwivedi, a division bench comprising Justice Arun Tandon and Justice Sunita Agarwal further directed that it shall be the responsibility of the District Magistrate, Senior Superintendent of Police and the District Mining Officer of all the districts concerned to ensure that no illegal mining is permitted to be carried out within their territorial limits of jurisdiction.

While fixing July 18, 2016 as the next date of listing of this matter, the court directed that the DMthe respective districts shall file their personal affidavits giving specific reply with reference to the photographs enclosed in support of the allegation of the illegal mining as well as to the averments made in respect thereof in all the writ petitions.

Passing the above directives the court warned that in case it is found that any illegal mining activity is being permitted/carried on in collusion with the district authorities, this court will not hesitate to recommend action against the officers found responsible for the same.

However, the court clarified that the directions given herein above will not affect the existing valid leases granted prior to May 31, 2012 in the respective districts.

During the course of hearing, the counsel for the petitioners, Devbrat Mukherjee and Syed Rafat Ali alleged that other grievance raised by means of these writ petitions is in respect of illegal mining being carried out in the districts namely Hamirpur, Deoria, Shamli, Fatehpur and Siddhartha Nagar. They contended that despite there being no subsisting lease in favour of any person for excavation of minor minerals specifically sand, excavation of minor mineral is being carried out by sand mafias in collusion with the district authorities