New Delhi, July 16: Even as the Supreme Court on Friday said “no” to taking up the cases of Reddy brothers and other miners of Bellary area on a priority basis, the Survey of India in a fresh report to the Supreme Court has accused the Karnataka and AP governments of not cooperating with its team in the demarcation of the disputed mines.
In a highly critical report against the two states, the SOI submitted that unless the boundary dispute between Karnataka and AP is resolved, the leased mines could not be demarcated properly and the issue relating to the mining dispute would also not be resolved in the process.
The 10-member survey team was asked by the apex court to demarcate afresh all the leased mines on which disputes had arisen with allegations of encroachment upon the reserved forests and indulging in “illegal mining”, the report said. Unless the two states give consent for demarcation of their boundaries, the mapping of the mines was not possible, it added. The report said when the new mine sketches, supplied by the state governments were compared to old sketches of 1975, a clear variation in the leased mines was found. In order to remove these doubts, the SOI has sought a direction from the apex court to both the states to give full cooperation to it.
“In order to demarcate the boundaries it became imperative to decide the mutually agreed inter-state boundaries of both the states at least in the Bellary reserved forests,” the report said adding if this was done by the two states, the demarcation of disputed mines could be completed in one month.
During the survey it was found that some of the mines were overlapping with each other and unless proper documents were made available by both the states and the Centre, correct demarcation was not possible.
“Both Andhra Pradesh and Karnatka governments be directed to provide mutually agreed inter-state boundary data while the central authorities be directed to supply revised lease sketches to complete the demarcation of the mines,” the SOI urged the top court.
But considering the new plan drawn by the apex court to hear all, mine, forest and environment cases and rejecting the plea for taking up the Bellary mine problems at the earliest, immediate direction may not be expected form the top court.