MADURAI
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday reserved orders in the Tiruchi-Karur sand mining case.
The expert committee appointed by the High Court, in its report, said that there were gross violations in sand mining, which was carried out without complying with environment norms. The committee wanted a long-term ban on sand mining activities in the region.
The government, in its counter, claimed that sand mining activities in the region were carried out in compliance with norms stipulated in environment clearance and steps were being taking to include modern technologies like CCTV cameras and IP cameras for monitoring mining activities. Government requested the High Court to permit mining activities.
The expert committee, comprising advocates R. Alagumani and B. Saravanan, and P. Ravichandran, Head, Department of Plant Science, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, sought a long-term ban of sand quarrying as violations of all parameters had depleted groundwater levels in the region.
This had adversely impacted the environment and a ban was needed to continue to allow replenishment of the Cauvery, it said.
Hearing the counter arguments and opinion of the expert committee, a division bench of Justices K.K. Sasidharan and G.R. Swaminathan reserved its orders.
