CHENNAI: Slamming the officials of the departments concerned for their “serious inaction” in cracking down against plundering of gravel from hills and water bodies in reserve forest areas and illegal operation of brick kilns in Coimbatore district, the Madras High Court has directed a district judge to hold an on-the-spot inquiry and file a report to the court in a week.
“When such a huge quantity of earth has been quarried and transported, it is not difficult to find out the destination and where the soil has been taken. Therefore, we find that there is serious inaction on the part of the concerned authorities and therefore, further action needs to be taken,” a special division bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy said in an order passed on Thursday.
Blaming the officials for passing the buck, the bench, which deals with forest-related cases, said neither any action has been taken nor the accused or the place, to which soil was transported, could be identified.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the inspection and reports filed by the officials including the district collector, the bench felt an independent inspection is required.
“We direct Narayanan, who is in the cadre of the District Judge and Chairman, Permanent Lok Adalat, in Coimbatore, to make an inspection of all these areas and the 14 illegal brick kilns,” the bench ordered, apart from directing the district collector, the Assistant Director of Mines, the District Forest Officer and the Superintendent of Police to accompany the district judge for the inspection.
It directed him to videograph the spots and examine the local volunteers and villagers and file a report on October 4.
Advocates SP Chokkalingam and M Purushothaman, appearing for the petitioners, brought to the notice of the court that certain illegal brick kilns are operating even after they were sealed by the authorities. Purushothaman also submitted photographs showing the extent of looting of gravel.
As per a report of the district collector, illegal quarrying has been done at Alanthurai, Devarayapuram, Vellimalaipattinam and Karadimadai villages.