The Tamil Nadu government has informed the Madras High Court that it has decided to recover losses to the tune of ₹5,832.44 crore from private beach sand mineral exporters, seize all the stocks available with them and constitute a Special Investigation Team to probe illegal mining since 2000-01.
In a counter-affidavit filed before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, who were seized of a suo motu PIL taken up in 2015, Industries Secretary S. Krishnan sought the court’s nod to seize 1.55 crore tonnes of stocks and hand them over to Indian Rare Earths Limited, a central PSU.
Firmly backing the three reports filed by amicus curiae V. Suresh, who had estimated the quantum of illegal mining and the loss to the public exchequer based on Central and State government reports, the Secretary said the government had accepted his findings, and the Collectors of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Kanniyakumari would be directed to recover the losses.
