The Supreme Court Tuesdaydismissed a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu governmentchallenging the anticipatory bail granted to Union minister MK Alagiri's son Durai Dayanidhi in the alleged multi-croregranite quarrying scam.
A bench comprising justices H L Dattu and Ranjan Gogoialso refused to interfere with the Madras High Court decisionquashing a non-bailable arrest warrant against Dayanidhi.
The bench, however, asked Dayanidhi to cooperate withthe investigation of the case and gave liberty to the stategovernment that it can approach the apex court in case ofnon-assistance by the accused.
On December 10, 2012, the high court had grantedrelief to Dayanidhi and directed him to surrender his passportand also to appear daily at the Melur police station, wherethe case is registered against him, until further orders.
The NBW against Dayanidhi was ordered by judicialmagistrate at Melur in Madurai district on a police plea inOctober.
Dayanidhi and nine others are facing charges thatfirms owned by them had mined sand and granite withoutpermission.
On a complaint from the local village administrativeofficer, police had charged Dayanidhi and Nagarajan, partnersin Olympus Granites Pvt Ltd, with encroaching on adjacentgovernment land and taking away large quantity of graniteillegally without quarrying in the permitted area and causingloss of Rs 44 crore to the government by illegal quarrying.
Cases had been registered under various IPC sectionsincluding 120(b) (criminal conspiracy), 447 (criminaltrespass) and 420 (cheating) against them.
Government had cracked down on several firms afterformer Madurai collector U Sahayam in a report, estimated thelosses incurred from illegal granite mining at around Rs16,000 crore.
Police had alerted immigration authorities to helpthem in preventing Dayanidhi and other accused from leavingthe country. The companies' accounts had already been frozen.