The Bombay High Court has pulled up the Director of Mines and Geology and directed that the Secretary (Mines) inquire into his conduct after the Court found that the Director had failed to take serious cognizance of illegal quarrying of laterite stones in Collem that was earlier stopped by the High Court.
In an affidavit filed before the High Court, the Director claimed that he has received several complaints concerning illegal quarrying in Collem, however, “these complaints were duly marked to the concerned officers for necessary action.”
According to us, the Director cannot simply pass the buck to some Assistant Geologists or Junior Officers in his Department. The complaints were addressed to the Director, who was responsible for taking action. If the officers in his Department had not attended to these complaints, then it was the Director’s duty to take immediate steps to see that such complaints were attended to,” the High Court bench of Justices M S Sonak and R N Laddha, said.
“The explanation that these complaints were forwarded to some Junior Officers is at least prima facie not acceptable. If the Junior Officers have not taken action, then the Director was required to act in the matter with utmost dispatch. But unfortunately, despite the opportunity, the Director has not even bothered to explain his role after receiving repeated complaints,” the High Court said.
“Accordingly, the Secretary (Mining) should inquire into this matter. The Secretary should ascertain who was the Director of Mines at the relevant time when these complaints were filed and why no action was taken on these complaints. Forwarding the complaints to junior officers and not even bothering to find out whether such officers have taken any steps to prevent the unauthorised mining or quarrying hardly amounts to any serious action,” the High Court said.
The High Court is hearing a petition filed by one Budho Arjun Gaonkar, who has alleged that the police and other authorities were reluctant to act on his complaints of large-scale quarrying operation for laterite stones is undertaken by using heavy earth moving machinery like bulldozer, JCB, excavators, power cutters, etc at Village Barkatem, Mollem, Dharbandora, Goa.
Earlier the High Court ordered a stoppage of quarrying works and ordered both the Director General of Police and the Director of Mines to explain why despite several complaints no action was forthcoming against the illegal quarrying.
“The complaints were serious and repeated. The mineral wealth was being stolen, and the Department responsible for preventing the same was just not attending to such serious and repeated complaints. The Police, in whose backyard this activity was going on, also took no action to prevent this unauthorised activity, which they now acknowledge constitutes a crime,” the Court said.
In response to the High Court directives, a field survey of the location found that “apart from the active pit, which is the subject matter of this petition, there are more inactive pits from which several laterite dimension stones have been extracted and disposed of.”
“We find it extremely difficult to accept that the officials of the Directorate of Mines and Geology and the police authorities were not even aware that this activity was going on for about four to five years,” the High Court said.
The Court also recorded how a loss of approximately Rs 1.39 crore has been caused to the State revenue due to this illegal quarrying operation in this single pit.
“Although the inspection report speaks about other excavations in the same area, we are surprised to note why no action is taken to determine the loss caused or identify the perpetrators. Thus, at least prima facie, either the authorities acted in dereliction of their duties if they seriously claim they were unaware of such large-scale activities or despite being aware, they chose not to act. In either scenario, inquiry and investigations are called for at substantially higher levels,” the High Court said.
“Similarly, suppose we find that the Police are not investigating this matter with the required degree of seriousness. In that case, we will have to consider whether the Special Investigation Team should be constituted to look into this issue of illegal quarrying not restricted only to the site in question but to various locations in the said area and possibly the entire State of Goa,” the High Court also said.
