Madras HC orders drone survey at mining sites across State

Justice SM Subramaniam passed the orders on disposing of a batch of writ petitions moved by several cement manufacturing companies.

“Mines and minerals and anything under the earth is nation’s wealth and belong to ‘we, the people of India’. Thus, no one can be allowed to exploit us and least by a few greedy men for their unjust gains. Illegalities under the cover of legality are the modern invention of a few super brains. Thus, the modernised measuring system of mining operations is imminent,” the judge held.

The judge directed the government to conduct drone measurements hereinafter in all mining operations across the State for the purpose of assessing the mining operations and the minerals mined by the mining operators to determine the royalty to be collected.

The HC has also wanted the State government to file an action taken report regarding this matter on June 1, 2022. The petitioners sought a direction to quash a notice issued by the director of geology and mining department demanding the companies to pay high royalty for extracting limestone from the mines of the state government for making cement.

R Shunmugasundaram, Advocate General countered that the data provided by the cement companies for the period from 1989 to 2002 revealed that there was a substantial increase in the production of cement. “However, no increase was reflected in the revenue realised by way of royalty on limestone mined for the production of cement,” the AG claimed as the reason for increasing the royalty.

On recording the submissions, the HC rejected the contentions of the petitioners directing them to pay the royalty amount as mentioned in the demand notice issued by the geology and mining department within four weeks.