HC seeks report from state in ‘illegal’ sand mining case

Kolkata: A vacation bench of Calcutta High Court directed the state to file a report and not proceed with the auction of a sand block in a case where the petitioner alleged that despite having paid Rs 1 lakh as penalty to the state, the suspension order against him for extracting sand from that block was not revoked, thus affecting his right to livelihood.

The petitioner approached the bench of Justice Kausik Chanda for relief. As per the petition, he was declared the highest bidder for excavation of sand in the mining area of Onda Block and a deed of lease was executed between him and the state in May 2019. Since then, he was running his mining business but in March 2022, the state issued a suspension order on mining work of the petitioner, “vaguely alleging” that illegal sand mining activities were afoot at the said lease hold area. The petitioner was allegedly asked to pay a penalty Rs 1 lakh by the state.

The petitioner paid Rs 1 lakh but alleged that till date the suspension order was not revoked. The mining business of the petitioner still remains banned “causing serious

prejudice to his rights and interest” since the said mining business is said to be the only source of income for him. It was learnt that earlier the High Court had disposed of a writ petition by this petitioner, directing him to submit a comprehensive representation before the additional district magistrate and district Land and Land Reforms officer, Bankura. However, despite doing the same, his prayer was rejected on the said representation by the state. He submitted another such representation with a prayer of extension of lease for one year but nothing was granted.

Bench of Justice Chanda directed on Tuesday: “Let the state file a report in response to the allegations made in the writ petition within a period of three weeks from date.

It appears that despite depositing the penalty amount, the petitioner was prevented from extracting the sand block for about seven months.

In that view of the matter, the state shall not proceed with the auction in respect of the said sand block for a period of three months from date”. The matter is again set to appear before the regular bench in November.