Chandigarh | Nov 04, 2015: HEARING a public interest litigation pending for three years, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has now granted the Punjab government one last opportunity to notify and implement a Monitoring Prevention Plan to check rampant illegal excavation of minor minerals across the state. The state has been given a month to come up with the plan.

So far, over 2,000 FIRs have been registered across the state for illegal mining, particularly in Mohali, Rupnagar, Ludhiana, Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur, Pathankot and Tarn Taran districts.

The division bench of the high court headed by Justice S K Mittal has now directed the state government to file a compliance report before December 17, the next date of hearing. “It is made clear that no further adjournment shall be granted,” the bench said.

The directions came on a public interest litigation filed by Chandigarh resident Gurbir Singh Pannu, who had approached the high court in November 2012 alleging that rampant illegal mining across Punjab was causing a loss of over Rs 10,000 crore a year to the public exchequer.

On its part, the state government had informed the court on September 21 that it had prepared a Monitoring Prevention Plan to check the illegal excavation of minor minerals, “which has to be approved by the cabinet and thereafter would be notified”. The court was told that in the meantime, a special investigating team has been taking action against offenders.

The court had, however, observed: “The officers of state of Punjab are either complicit or in connivance with persons responsible for illegal mining. It may also be possible that government officers turn a blind eye to illegal mining”

Punjab Advocate General Ashok Aggarwal had himself acknowledged the involvement of policemen, bureaucrats and politicians in illegal mining worth crores in the state.

The petitioner’s counsel RS Bains had argued that whenever the Punjab government frames guidelines for auctioning of minor minerals, it allegedly intentionally leaves some lacunae. “Ultimately, the mining process is challenged in the court and stayed. This is how illegal mining goes on unabated,” he said.

(Source: http://indianexpress.com/)