The Madras High Court on Monday, February 12, 2024 decided to commence from March 11 the final hearing on a huge of batch of cases related to alleged illicit beach sand mining in Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari districts and the blanket mining ban in the State since 2013.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy took the decision after hearing Senior Counsel Arvind P. Datar for the State government, V. Raghavachari for miner S. Vaikundarajan, amicus curiae V. Suresh and Srinath Sridevan for V.V. Minerals.
It was brought to the notice of the Bench that cases had been filed challenging the Government Orders issued in 2013 imposing a ban on beach sand mining apart from a public interest litigation which was initially filed by an individual but subsequently converted into a suo motu PIL.
