Madras High Court to finally reserve its verdict on beach sand mining cases pending since 2015

Madras High Court to reserve judgment on beach sand mining cases, including illegal mining allegations, after marathon oral hearing.

The Madras High Court is all set to reserve its judgment on a batch of cases related to beach sand mining which remains banned in the State since 2013 due to complaints of massive illegal mining of not just garnet, ilmenite, rutile, zircon and sillimanite but also the radioactive mineral monazite from Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari and a few other districts.

Justices S.M. Subramaniam and M. Jothiraman on Monday made it clear that Tuesday would be the last day of the marathon oral hearing that had been taking place intermittently since December 12, 2024 on the batch which includes a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up in 2015. They asked the lawyers to make all other submissions through written arguments.

Watch: Beach sand mining row in Tamil Nadu

“We cannot keep hearing this matter endlessly at the cost of other cases. We will list this matter finally tomorrow for all of you to complete your oral submissions. Thereafter, we will reserve our judgment and you can file your written arguments in a day or two,” the senior judge in the Division Bench told a battery of advocates who had argued the matter at length for over a month.

While senior counsel Arvind P. Datar, assisted by Additional Governnment Pleader B. Vijay, represented the State government; senior counsel V. Raghavachari and Srinath Sridevan led the arguments on behalf of the largest beach sind mining company V.V. Minerals promoted by Thoothukudi based S. Vaikundarajan who also argued the case in person and denied all charges of illegal mining levelled against him.

Amicus curiae V. Suresh brought it to the notice of the court that he had conducted an independent assessment of the quantum of illegal mining that had taken place, even after the State imposed ban, and that his reports had been accepted by the State government. Senior counsel G. Sankaran and V.R. Kamalanathan, representing a couple of employees associations, complained about loss of livelihood since 2013.

Mr. Vijay told the court the State government had accepted the methodology adopted by the amicus curiae to quantify the loss caused to the public exchequer and passed orders last month for recovering around ₹5,800 crore from the illegal miners. He said the final orders for recovery were passed since the court had refused to stay the operation of the show cause notices issued by the State.