New Delhi, March 29
Not satisfied with the cosmetic punitive action against people booked by the Haryana Government for illegal mining in eco-fragile Aravalli hill region of Gurgaon district, the Supreme Court, in yet another order, today directed the state authorities to put an immediate end to the menace and give approval to its proposed “action plan” for stopping the unauthorised mining within three weeks.
Directing the government to impound vehicles found carrying materials from illegal mines, make it mandatory for every vehicle to obtain a certificate from Mining Officer for carrying legally mined material away, cancel the licence of those crushers and mine owners who fail to obtain such certificate, a Bench comprising Mr Justice Y K Sabharwal and Mr Justice Tarun Kumar Chatterjee expressed surprise how the authorities had let off the booked offenders by imposing only a “nominal fine”.
“We may note that though various persons were convicted but being asked about the order of conviction, it was stated that in almost all cases only nominal fine has been imposed,” the Bench said, reminding the state government that under Section 15 of the Environment Protection Act an offender can be sentenced up to five years imprisonment and under Section 2, thereof the jail tem could be extended up to seven years.
“The State Government is directed to impound vehicles when they are found carrying illegally mined material… In that context we are told that some vehicles involved had been plying even without number plates. We fail to understand if some vehicles ply either without registration or on forged documents, why they were allowed to ply and not impounded,” the Bench said.
Dictating the order after recording the presence of Gurgaon Range Inspector-General of Police Swaranjit Singh and Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner Anurag Agrawal, who were summoned to the court after issuing contempt notices for failing
to implement its earlier order, the court directed the government not to waste any further time in implementing its proposed “action plan”.
At the very outset of today’s hearing on environmentalist lawyer M C Mehta’s public interest litigation (PIL) on the issue, Solicitor-General Goolam Vahanvati told the court that the state had mooted an “action plan” to stop illegal mining in the region.
Taking into consideration the urgency in the matter, the Bench clarified that the state need not to “wait” for court’s approval for implementing the action plan because the affidavit filed by the government had admitted that illegal mining was still going on despite “repeated orders by the court.”
While asking the state government to give wide publicity to its order so that the offenders were put to public notice, the court said that apart from the proposed action plan, today’s direction were “necessary to effectively check the illegal mining.”
The court further directed the state government to file a detailed affidavit by May 6 as to what action it had taken regarding the implementation of today’s direction and the so-called action plan and posted the matter for further hearing on May 9.
