Madras HC slams former Geology commissioner for fraudulent action favouring illegal mining
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has strongly condemned a senior IAS officer, formerly the Commissioner of Geology and Mining, for passing a 'completely fraudulent, aberrational and unconscionably illegal' order that benefited a lease holder involved in large-scale illegal mining in Tiruppur district.
The officer in question, J Jayakanthan currently serving as Secretary of the Water Resources Department, was censured for his 2022 decision to revoke the temporary suspension of a quarrying licence granted to lease holder R Ramakrishnan. This decision was made without following due legal procedures and permitted the resumption of mining operations upon payment of an initial fine of Rs 30 lakh, with the remainder to be paid in instalments. The total penalty imposed at the time was only Rs 10.40 crore.
Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy, in a scathing judgment, noted: 'The order of the second respondent is completely fraudulent, aberrational, and unconscionably illegal. It is an affront to the environment and to the entire body of Supreme Court judgments on the subject. This course of action was taken to defraud the Government of a significant sum of money certainly more than Rs 78 crore.'
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