CHENNAI | March 18, 2015: The first bench of Madras High Court said on Tuesday that further proceedings on the PIL that alleged illegal monozite mining from the beach sand along TN coast would be taken up after a deposit of Rs 10,000 towards cost.

When the PIL from G Victor Rajamanickam (71) of Pillayarpatti, Thanjavur district praying for a direction to the Government to form a special investigation team (SIT) to probe illegal mining of beach sand in the coastal districts of TN for extracting monozite came up before the bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh on Tuesday, the bench said that some of the respondents in the case had not filed their counter affidavits. They should do so within four weeks. Thereafter, the issue would be taken on record subject to the deposit of the cost of Rs 10,000, the bench said and posted the matter for June 11.

Victor, a retired scientist of the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, and now director, Centre for Disaster Management, PRIST University, Thanjavur, stated that he had surveyed the entire coastal region from Kutch to Kanniyakumari and identified six potential zones for beach sand mineral exploration. He alleged that there was massive corruption and illegality in the mining of beach sand minerals such as monozite, ilmenite, rutile, zircon, garnet, leucoxene in Tamil Nadu.

The State machinery was subservient to the mafia involved in beach sand mining. S Vaikundarajan of VV Minerals and his aides, had an illegal monopoly and mined the valuable minerals. When the PIL came up before the bench last January, petitioner’s counsel confined his grievance to mining of monozites. He claimed that it could not be done without the Centre’s permission.

(Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/)