The Supreme Court has requested Madras High Court Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani to ensure that a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and N. Seshasayee continue to hear a batch of cases related to beach sand mining in the State by sitting together either in the principal seat of the court in Chennai or in the Madurai Bench and not through videoconferencing with one judge in Chennai and another in Madurai.
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta have made the request while disposing of an application preferred by beach sand mining firm V.V. Minerals of Tirunelveli. The company had rushed to the Supreme Court complaining about the delay in disposing of a 2015 suo motu public interest litigation petition as well as other connected cases, which, it said, virtually crippled its entire business for the last four years.
It initially obtained an order from the Bench led by the CJI on July 4 requesting Justice Tahilramani to take steps to dispose of the entire batch of cases “as expeditiously as the (High) Court’s business would permit.” Thereafter, the cases were listed for hearing through videoconferencing on July 17 since Justice Sathyanarayanan had been deputed to the Madurai Bench for three months on June 3 though Justice Seshasayee was in Chennai.
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After the hearing, the judges adjourned the case for further hearing on August 5. I
n the meantime, the mining firm approached the Supreme Court once again claiming that despite its July 4 order for expeditious disposal of the cases by the High Court, the hearing on July 17 could not be held in a “satisfactory manner” and that the judges as well as amicus curiae V. Suresh were not happy with the hearing through videoconferencing.