Samaj Parivartan Samudaya (SPS) on Monday took serious exception to Bellary MLA G. Somashekar Reddy continuing as Chairman of the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) despite his alleged involvement in the cash-for-bail scam.
Addressing presspersons, founder president of the SPS S.R. Hiremath also sought to know why the government had not filed a charge-sheet against Mr. Somashekar, for “brazenly” threatening Lokayukta official U.V. Singh, who visited the Ramghad area to inquire into the illegal mining case. “Somashekar Reddy had threatened Mr. Singh by asking if he had taken the permission of the then district in-charge Minister G. Janardhan Reddy, and a complaint had been lodged in this regard on September 21, 2009,” he said. Expressing satisfaction over the recent pronouncement by a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Aftab Alam, not permitting any extraction of iron ore, until reclamation and rehabilitation plans were implemented “on the ground in 16 mines classified under Category A”, Mr. Hiremath said efforts made by the iron and steel industry to resume mining had “failed to yield results”.
Besides that, the Bench extended an opportunity to the SPS, petitioner in the illegal mining case, to file objections on the recommendations of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to allow mining by Category A mines. “Counsel for the SPS, Prashanth Bhushan, filed two sets of submissions supported by documents on August 20 and 24, detailing illegalities committed by some leases under Category A and appealed against allowing resumption of mining operations by them,” he said.
