High court seeks report on PIL alleging sand theft in

Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has sought a report from the department of geology and mining in Tirunelveli on a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking action against sand theft in Tirunelveli.
S Udayar, president of Hindu Makkal Katchi – Thamilagam, Tirunelveli had filed the PIL. The petition came up for admission before the division bench of Justice Nooty Ramamohana Rao and Justice SS Sundar.
According to the petitioner, one T Shanmugasundaram of Muthupattinam had obtained licence from the district collector to stock 17, 000 units of sand on a three-acre land in Gangaikondan village.However, he stored four-lakh units of sand on a 10-acre land, violating the licence norms, the petitioner alleges.
Accusing the district collector of aiding the licensee, he said, "With regard to illegal storage of sand, several representations were sent to the district collector who did not take action." When the matter was taken to the notice of the district authority a year ago, a probe by the revenue divisional officer (RDO) was ordered, the petitioner said. The RDO conducted a field inspection and filed a report to the collector on December 18 last year pointing out irregularities committed by the licensee. However, when the licensee wanted to renew the licence, the collector renewed it on December 22. It enabled the licensee to steal sand from Sitraru and Tamirabarani rivers and illegally store at his stockyard.
The petitioner also said that when he obtained information under the RTI Act, he came to know that Shanmugasundaram did not disclose all details in the application for renewing the licence, which the collector failed to note.