The Supreme Court has admitted an interlocutory application (IA) filed by the Tapal brothers of Ballari seeking direction to the Joint Team and the apex court appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to fix the inter-State boundaries in Ballari reserve forest between Ballari district and Anantapur district expeditiously.
Tapal Ganesh, mine owner, who fought against illegal mining and one of the brothers of the applicants, said in the application that though four-and-a-half years had passed after the Supreme Court passed an order to carry out a survey to demarcate the mining lease boundaries of seven mines in Tumti and Vitlapuram in Sandur taluk and also to determine and fix the Inter-State Boundary (ISB) passing through the Ballari reserve forest between Ballari and Anantapur districts, nothing had happened on ground.
It has also been pointed out that there were existing rock marks which could be used to survey the village boundaries, on which leases were granted, and also ISB.
The delay in fixing the ISB of the seven mining leases, which included one granted to the applicant’s father the late Tapal Narayan Reddy, had caused lot of hardships to the lessees.
Even the CBI had also requested the CEC to expedite the fixing of lease boundaries for it to complete the ongoing investigation.
Meanwhile, it has been noted that around 44,000 tonnes of iron ore stocked in the yard of applicant, valued at ₹6 crore (excluding interest) was sold by the Monitoring Committee through e-auction, as per the direction of the Supreme Court.
When the applicant applied for payment, the Monitoring Committee had refused stating that ISB had not been fixed.