CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday constituted a four-member panel, headed by IAS officer A Arun Thamburaj, to oversee sand quarrying operations by State PWD at Oruvanthur village in Namakkal district.
A bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee constituted the committee while passing orders on a PIL from Varadharajan of Mohanur seeking a directive to stop sand quarrying operations by PWD, pursuant to the proceedings dated March 12, 2017 of the Collector.
“This court is of the considered view that the taluk and district-level task forces may not be in a position to carry out the duties and responsibilities, especially in the light of the fact that the quarrying operations are being done by the State government.
Therefore, an independent monitoring agency is to be put in place to oversee the operations and submit periodical reports to this court,” the judges said and formed the panel.
Advocate-General Vijay Narayan submitted that already taluk and district-level task forces are in place to check the operations.