The High Court-appointed Legal Commissioner, U. Sagayam, on Friday wound up his nine-month-long probe into the multi-crore granite scam in Madurai district.
His team members are giving final touches to a report, running to several hundred pages. The report covers over 30 aspects of the scam, its impact on rural life and criminal manifestations, mostly on agrarian populace. It is expected to be submitted before the High Court on October 15 during the next hearing, sources said.
The former Collector of Madurai district, Mr. Sagayam, blew the lid over the illegal mining of granite that saw many huge hills and hillocks vanishing in the last two decades, especially in Melur and Madurai North taluks. His 2012-report on the issue, claiming that the exchequer had incurred a loss of over Rs. 16,000 crore, set the tone for a laborious investigation by his successor Anshul Mishra.
However, following a case, the High Court appointed Mr. Sagayam to probe the scam thoroughly.
Mr. Sagayam started his investigation with receiving over 600 petitions from people on the impact of illegal mining over agriculture, cattle rearing, environmental degradation, vandalising structures of high archaeological importance and destruction of water bodies and supply channels.
The commission also came across complaints of missing of scores of irrigation tanks, hundreds of irrigation channels, encroachment of poromboke land, panchami land, cremation yard and temple land. In Malampatti, the course of a river, Manimuthar, was diverted by a granite quarry.
Among the criminal complaints were threat to and assault on villagers by employees of quarry operators. In the last leg of the investigation, the commission focussed on complaints of human sacrifice. Nine bodies were exhumed from two sites and their forensic analysis is under way.
The voluminous report is expected to be submitted before High Court on October 15
