Moravineni Sudheer of Eturunagaram village in Mulugu district has filed a writ petition in the Telangana High Court challenging the authority of the State government in setting a fixed price of Rs 100 per cubic metre as payment to patta land owners for the sand cast from the land.A bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C V Bhaskar Reddy, issued notices to the State government to file a counter by the next date of hearing on November 21.
V Mallik, counsel for the petitioner, contended that Rule 7(i)(iv) of the Telangana State Sand Mining Rules 2015 was in violation of the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, 1957 because it does not allow the State government to set a price for minerals. He cited the Supreme Court’s judgments in this regard and claimed that the State government lacks the authority to set the price.
He brought to the court’s attention that the government was attempting to justify this arbitrary price fixing on the grounds of reducing illicit mining, but it was unclear how already extracted sand with proper licenses from the authorities would constitute illegal mining.
The Telangana State Mineral Development Corporation (TSMDC) is in charge of de-casting sand from farmer patta lands and controlling its price and sale. The TSMDC sells sand collected from patta lands at Rs 600 per cubic metre but pays the patta land owner Rs 100 per cubic metre, which includes the land owner’s costs for creating ramps, roadways, and deploying machinery for sand extraction.The TSMDC bears only the shipping and storage costs, which are deducted from the sale price of Rs 600 per cubic metre. This is the subject of the current writ petition. The bench ordered the respondents to file counter-affidavits and delayed the case until November 21.