Chennai: The Madras high court on Tuesday said it would take a final decision on the alleged multi-crore granite mining scam, once the state government produces a ‘composite picture’ .
During the course of hearing on a PIL from Traffic Ramaswamy, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R.Mahadevan said the court has three options. It could direct the CBI to probe the scam, as sought by the petitioner.
It could ask the state government’s CB-CID to conduct investigation or the existing probe could be continued. A final decision in the matter will be taken once the state government gives a composite picture, the bench added.
The matter relates to illegal granite mining in Madurai. The high court had appointed former Madurai district collector U Sagayam, as the one man commission to probe the scam.
Accordingly, the officer conducted the investigation and submitted a comprehensive report. The officer also quantified the loss to the public exchequer as Rs 1.11 lakh crore.
The state government had on March 31 informed the high court that many steps have been taken in pursuance to the report of Sagayam. It also filed an interim reply based on the comments received from some of the departments. It also informed the court that responses on the report from several departments were yet to be received by the government and sought time to file a final reply.
On Tuesday, advocate general A.L.Somayaji submitted that the government had sought reports and inputs from various departments vis a vis the report complied by Sagayam.
While some departments have sent in their reports, other were yet to give their inputs, he added and sought some more time. In its brief order, the bench said advocate general submitted that some more departments have to file their response.
He assured that he will assist the court by giving a composite picture, keeping in mind the stand of the different departments. Counsel for the Enforcement Directorate stated that they were also looking into the issue and will file a status report.
In so far as the presence of the counsel for the CBI was concerned, assistant solicitor general stated that he will ensure that the counsel was present on the next hearing date, the bench added and posted the matter to July 28.
