Jan. 7: In a major setback to the powerful Reddy brothers of Karnataka, a Supreme Court panel on Friday recommended cancellation of all three mining leases of their Obulapuram Mining Company in Andhra Pradesh citing various illegalities.
The central empowered committee of the SC has also sought cancellation of the mining lease of the sister concern Anantapur Mining Company. Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation is also closing in on the Reddy brothers and is quantifying the amount of iron ore mined illegally by OMC.
The Supreme Court committee sharply criticised the AP government for the irregular manner in which it renewed the mining leases of OMC and AMC thus contributing to the “sorry state of affairs” in the sector.
“This could not have taken place without the active connivance of the concerned officers of the government,” said Mr M.K. Jiwrajka, who headed the four-member CEC team. “The almost non-existent monitoring mechanism contributed to the large-scale illegalities.”
The committee also recommended fresh demarcation of mining leases of two other companies BIOP Ltd and YMS Ltd, who were found to have ‘expanded’ their mining operations to the reserve forests and asked authorities to slap heavy fines on them.
The way the AP government unduly favoured the Reddy brothers was noted with concern by the committee. It also lambasts the AP mining department for allowing transportation from the lease areas illegally.
“The first renewal period of 25.9 hectares of OMC expired on December 13, 2004, and the permission granted by AP to treat the mining lease valid up to April 25, 2017, is illegal and needs to be set aside,” it said in its 69-page report, annexed with voluminous documents.