The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court could not have used clearer language than it has done in recommending that illegal mining must be stopped in six mines in two villages of Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district that border Karnataka. In a report submitted to the Supreme Court in connection with a writ petition, the CEC has made it clear that mining activities in this reserve forest area must be suspended until the boundaries of the iron ore mines are demarcated afresh. The committee has found the State government’s report to be “shockingly lacking in objectivity, fairness and impartiality.” The demarcation of boundaries has therefore to be undertaken by a team consisting of senior representatives of the Survey of India, and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, in addition to the State agencies in Andhra Pradesh. The controversy relates to mining companies in Obulapuram and H. Siddapuram villages, in which the BJP’s Tourism Minister of Karnataka, G. Janardhana Reddy (of Bellary), and Congress MP Jaganmohan Reddy, the son of the late Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, have interests. The entire opposition in A.P. has been demanding a probe into the alleged illegal mining in the region, and Chief Minister K. Rosaiah has responded positively by asking for a CBI investigation into the complaints.
The CEC’s report nails the falsehoods resorted to by the YSR administration on previous complaints. Chief Minister Rosaiah, who has played it by the book so far, must heed the CEC’s advice and crack down on illegal mining, in the interest of the rule of law as well as the environment. The committee has suggested that for the mining done outside the approved leases an “exemplary cost, equivalent to the normative market value of the iron ore extracted from the area” must be imposed on the leaseholder. The power and influence wielded by an unsavoury business partnership, which makes light of State and political boundaries and resorts to extra-constitutionalism to satisfy its greed, has been felt in both States. The Bellary Brothers, flexing their financial muscle, succeeded in bringing Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to his knees as the price for being allowed to continue in office. Their power springs directly from politically facilitated access to these iron ore mines. As Union Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge has suggested, the CBI investigation requested by the Andhra Pradesh government must be extended to cover possible illegal mining in neighbouring Karnataka. Taking on this unholy nexus of business and politics will be a stern test for both State governments -- and for the country’s two leading political parties.
