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Federation for fresh panel to inspect Madurai quarries

The bench also directed them to file a comprehensive report within 6 weeks in respect of the recommendations made by Sagayam.

Chennai: Contending that the report of former Madurai district collector U.Sagayam, appointed by the court to probe into the illegal granite mining in Madurai, has to be rejected in toto, the Federation of Indian Granite and Stone Industry (FIGSI) has filed a petition in the Madras high court to constitute a Committee consisting of representatives of central and state government agencies for the purpose of inspecting all the granite quarries in Madurai and file its report with regard to the quantum of mass excavated minerals and sale worthy recovery of granite.

The FIGSI filed the miscellaneous petition through its senior counsel P.Wilson when the PIL from social activist Traffic Ramaswamy came up for hearing before a division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G.Ramesh and Justice R.Mahadevan.

Directing the Union and state governments to file their counters to the petition from FIGSI, the bench also directed them to file a comprehensive report within 6 weeks in respect of the recommendations made by Sagayam.

In its petition, FIGSI submitted that this court appointed Sagayam to inspect the mines and file a report. Though this court did not permit him to conduct any roving enquiry, he has conducted enquiries and filed his report running in several hundred pages.

With regard to the sale worthy recovery of granite adopted uniformly all over India which was worked out to be from 15 percent to 20 percent. However, Sagayam has arrived the sale worthy recovery of granite at 90 percent without any basis. This was the reason for him to come to a conclusion of loss of more than Rs 1 lakh crore.

Without taking any scientific data or with the help of any expert body, he has alleged to have stated in his report that large quantities of granites were exported from Madurai, FIGSI added.

The FIGSI said without taking the assistance of the Geological Survey of India, Indian Bureau of Mines and the National Institute of Rock Machanics by the legal commissioner to go into the issue relating to loss, the report of the legal commissioner was not legally acceptable nor can be countenanced in law.

Therefore, in the interest of justice and to unveil the truth, a committee comprising of the representatives from the GSI, IBM, NIRM, Geology and Mining, Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited and Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has to be constituted to inspect the quarries in Madurai and file its report, the FIGSI added.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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