Illegal beach sand mining in T.N.: Madras HC orders CBI probe to unearth ‘political nexus’

The Madras High Court on Monday (February 17, 2025) ordered a CBI probe to find out if there was a nexus between politicians, government officials, and private beach sand miners in the massive quantity of illegal mining.

The Madras High Court on Monday (February 17, 2025) ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe to find out if there was a nexus between politicians, government officials, and private beach sand miners in the massive illegal mining that had taken place in the State for years.

A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and M. Jothiraman directed the CBI to get to the bottom of the matter and report illegalities, if any, to the Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Income Tax authorities, as well as Customs officials for initiating appropriate action.

The orders were passed while disposing of a batch of writ petitions that had been pending in the court since 2011. The judges held as valid the reports of IAS officers Gangandeep Singh Bedi and Satyabrata Sahoo, as well as that of amicus curiae V. Suresh, who had confirmed the illegal mining.

The judges directed the Tamil Nadu government to go ahead with the steps that it had already taken to recover ₹5,842 crore from illegal miners towards royalty dues and penalty for the illegal mining of precious minerals such as garnet, ilmenite, rutile, zircon, and so on.

Insofar as the raw sand and semi-processed sand that still remain stored in the godowns of private miners at Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, and Kanniyakumari districts were concerned, the court ordered it to be handed over to the Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL), a Central government undertaking.

The Bench also recorded the State government’s submission that 16.04 lakh tonnes of valuable beach sand minerals (BSM) had been transported illegally by private miners in the State between 2018 and 2022, though there has been a ban on transportation of the minerals since 2013.