Illegal Mining Caused Loss of Rs 16,085 Crore: Justice Hegde
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Jul 27: In a much-awaited revelation Lokayukta Justice Hegde on Wednesday July 27 told reporters that chief minister Yeddyurappa and his family have been indicted in the illegal mining report.
He also named former CM and JD(S) chief Kumaraswamy for approving two mining leases.
Apart from the two, he named the Reddy brothers, minister Sriramalu, V Somanna's family and Congress MP Anil Lad's wife who has a mining lease in her name. He said that the Reddy brothers had been claiming innocence all this while but he has provided enough evidence against them in the report. He also named MLA Nagendra and said that as many 787 officials and politicians have been named in the report.
The loss to the exchequer due to illegal mining in the state from the period 2006 to 2010 is estimated at Rs 16,085 crore, he said. The losses were of different types, he said, but did not enumerate.
"Certain transactons have taken place with a company which is dealing in iron ore that had 'donated' Rs 10 crore to a trust managed by the CM's family and had purchased an acre of land in Rachenahalli for a consideration of 20 crores. As per guidance values it would not have been more than Rs 1.40 crore," Justice Hegde said.
"The company was not financially strong. It had to borrow from others and pay to the trust."
The copy of the exhaustive report, comprising 25,228 pages with 31 chapters along with annexures has also been submitted to governor H R Bhardwaj for further action, apart from the chief secretary of the government. He added that the report was prepared after studying around four lac files and going through 50 lac entries.
"The team found that there was a large scale involvement of officials, powerful people, both at the administration level as well as in the ground level," he said.
Even sales purchase documents were found with a lot of discrepancies, like abnormally high price, payments made either as donations or sale considerations or in other ways not genuine, he said.
He said the CM's offence falls under the Prevention of Corruption Act while those against the others like Reddy brothers will be under other Acts of the Indian law.
He has also recommended the governor to take further action as he is the competant authority.
He said that back in 2006 a referrel was made to him to look into the issue of illegal mining in the state. He and his team comprising U V Singh, Bishwajit Mishra, Uday Kumar and others studied illegal mining in areas like Bellary, where it was the worst, Hospet and other areas. They also found factors like overloading of lorries, mining in forest areas and mining more than the stipulated amount and submitted a report to the government in December 2008.
However, no action was taken by the government except for filing of cases against some companies. He said that in 2010 he almost gave his resignation after 5 lac metric tons of iron went missing out of the huge quantity seized in March. The investigation was then extended to July 2010.
The latest report names over a 100 companies and firms, some of which have violated norms more than once and some several times. He recommended a cancellation of their licenses. One of the companies he named was Southwest Mining Company of Jindal Group.
He also clarified that former chief ministers S M Krishna and Dharam Singh have not been named in the report.
He recommended that the loss incurred should be recovered from the mining companies and from those named in the report. He agreed with the SC-appointed Central Empowered Committee that four times the loss incurred should be recovered.
He expressed hope that the Supreme Court which is monitoring the mining activities in the state would take cognizance of the issue.
Another major suggestion he made was the imposition of ban on the export of iron ore, adding that licenses should be given to only those companies that will mine in required quantities and convert it into a value product.
He said that his team was under threat for stepping on the toes of very powerful people from government, politicians, strong mining lobbies and others. The threat was not just physical but also professional, he said and urged the government to provide them adequate security.