Madras High Court constitutes SIT to probe illegal sand mining near forest areas

Madras High Court. File
| Photo Credit: K. Pichumani

The Madras High Court on Friday (January 10, 2025) constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT), comprising IPS officers G. Nagajothi and G. Shanshank Sai, to probe into the massive illegal mining of soil, allegedly by brick kilns, occurring in close proximity to the reserve forest areas of Coimbatore district.

A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the orders on a batch of petitions filed by activists S. Muralidharan, R. Karpagam, M. Siva, and others, through their counsel S.P. Chockalingam and M. Purushothaman, and called for a status report by February 27, 2025.

The Bench made it clear that the SIT shall take up the investigation in cases that had already been registered by the local police and also register fresh cases too, if there was a larger conspiracy angle to the illegal mining that had led to the creation of huge trenches near the forest areas.

The orders were passed after taking serious note of an exhaustive report filed by district judge G. Narayanan confirming the illegal mining activities and also after taking into consideration the suggestions made by amici curiae T. Mohan, Chevanan Mohan, Rahul Balaji, and M. Santhanaraman.

To prevent such illegal mining activities around the forest areas in the future, the Division Bench directed the State government to develop a system for automatic surveillance in consultation with the Institute of Remote Sensing at Anna University in Chennai.

The judges also ordered the initiation of remedial measures by closing the existing trenches with the assistance of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Further, they ordered the transfer of all officials who had failed to prevent the large-scale illegal mining happening near the forest areas.

District judge’s report

Mr. Narayanan had inspected as many as 15 brick kilns at Madhampatti, Alandurai, Kuppaipalayam, Thondamuthur, Thenkarai, Kalikanaickenpalayam, Mathipalayam, Vadivelampalayam, and Mugasimangalam villages in October 2024 on the basis of the directions issued by the Division Bench.

The inspection found irregularities in most of the brick kilns that were reportedly sealed about six months ago. The district judge found the availability of wet sand and wet bricks in those kilns, despite their claim of not being in operation for months together.

Apart from the kilns, the district judge had also inspected government as well private lands situated close to the reserve forests in Anaikatti, Karadimadai, Devarayapuram, and other places and found deep trenches, created due to soil mining, in close proximity to the forests.

“From the overall inspection, I submit that the patta lands near the Western Ghats were miserably abused both by the land owners themselves or by other miscreants with or without the knowledge of the land owners. This rampant sand mining has been carried in these areas in a wide spread manner,” the district judge had said.

His report went on to state: “Almost in all the places we inspected the sand mining activities were noticed in just 500 meters away from the reserve forest boundary. If the soil in the foot hills of the reserve forest becomes loose and without firm ground support due to rampant mining, there is every possibility for land slides during heavy rains and if these quarrying activities are permitted to continue without a firm check, the forest treasure could be found only in books and not in reality.”