The Madras High Court (HC) closed the petitions of five district collectors following their plea to withdraw the petitions filed against the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) in the illegal sand mining case. In 2023, the court had ordered an interim stay based on their pleas, however, the Supreme Court (SC) stayed the directive and ordered the officials to appear before the ED on April 2, 2024.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had informed the Madras High Court (HC) that illegal sand mining sales to the tune of Rs 4,700 crore (approx) had taken place in Tamil Nadu between 2021 and 2023. These figures were based on satellite imagery from the database of the National Remote Sensing Centre (a unit of ISRO) and assessments by an expert team. The ED report said sand mining was permitted only in 28 sites, spread across 196.37 hectares, but took place in 987.10 hectares of land.
Advocate General (AG) PS Raman, appearing on behalf of the state, told the Madras HC that the collectors had cooperated with the agency and had appeared before them as per the apex court’s orders from April 2024, and therefore asked for the petitions to be dismissed. Justices SM Subramaniam and M Jothiraman closed the petitions after the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) appearing for the ED did not object to the withdrawal of the petitions.
It may be noted that following the apex court’s order, the five District Collectors including Anne Mary Swarn (Ariyalur), Pradeep Kumar (Trichy), Deepak Jacob (Thanjavur), Subbulakshmi (Vellore), and Thangavel (Karur) had appeared before the agency on April 25, 2024. The collectors were questioned for 10 hours.