The Chief Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked 21 people, including sand mining baron S Vaikundarajan, the owner of VV Minerals and two other sand mining firms, and several unknown government officials, for illegal beach sand mining along the coasts of Kanniyakumari, Thoothukudi, and Tirunelveli districts in Tamil Nadu.
Earlier, on February 17, the Madras High Court (HC) had ordered the CBI to investigate the matter and find if government officials and politicians could have facilitated private illegal mining to the tune of Rs 5,832 crore.
The CBI has reportedly filed several First Information Reports (FIRs) and six mining companies have been booked for illegal beach sand mining. These include VV Minerals, Indian Ocean Garnet Sands Company Limited, Transworld Garnet India Limited, Beach Minerals Company Limited, and Industrial Mineral India Private Limited.
According to reports, the names in the FIRs included Velmrugan and Subramanian—sons of Vaikundarajan. The FIRs also named Vaikundarajan’s brother, S Jagatheesan and his nephews, Muthurajan, Subburajan, and Senthilrajan. It may be noted that on Saturday, April 5, the CBI also raided the offices and residence of Vaikundarajan.
Although government authorities’ positions were mentioned in the FIRs, their names were not specified in the FIRs filed by the CBI.
Several provisions of the IPC, MMDR Act, Prevention of Corruption Act, and Atomic Energy Act have been invoked, reports also said.
The Madras HC’s ruling had come in response to over 25 petitions, including a suo-motu Public Interest Litigation (PIL) initiated by the court in 2015. The PIL and subsequent petitions accused private firms—VV Minerals, Transworld Garnet, and Beach Sand Mining—of carrying out unauthorised sand mining along the state’s coastline.
The court also granted the Tamil Nadu government authority to proceed with recovering Rs 5,832 crore from illegal miners. The bench also ordered that all sand stocks—both processed and unprocessed—stored by private miners in their godowns be handed over to Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL), a union government enterprise.
Following the murder of mining activist Jagaber Ali in Pudukottai district, the court also ordered the district administrators to provide protection to whistleblowers who report illegal sand mining activities.