Earlier this year, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court had directed the Tamil Nadu state government to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)/Drones or satellite imagery in order to curb illegal sand mining in the state.
As rampant illegal sand mining of rivers continued to happen all across the State despite state government assuring “effective” surveillance mechanisms has been developed”, reported The Hindu
The matter was taken up by, Justices M. Venugopal and S. Vaidyanathan, and they issued a set of other directives, which included formation of special police branch of anti-sand smuggling teams comprising senior officials with requisite powers to deal with the powerful sand mafia, who has connivance with politicians and the “black sheep” among government officials.
The court further said, that due fear of harassment at the hands of the police, common people do not bother to lodge complaints against illegal mining, and suggested the government of deploying “senior officers known for their impeccable integrity and honesty” in the State-level monitoring committee.
Use Of Drones
The judges also reprimanded those officials, who were not discharging their duty properly and instructed them to conduct spot inspection at sites, including the officials deployed at district-level as well as taluk-level monitoring committees, they also suggested the State government that inspectors of police should be detailed into taluk-level committees instead of sub-inspectors of police.
The court in its judgement said “If any negligence/laissez-faire attitude/inaction is shown by any of the officers who are exclusively deployed for this purpose, the government is entitled to take suitable disciplinary action against them for non-performence of duties and they may be placed under suspension and necessary punishments may be imposed… which will act as an eye opener for others officials”. Similar will be the cases for IAS and IPS officers who may be transferred from these posts.
Protecting Officials
However, the court also noted the fact that sometimes, officials also involved threat to life and limb, while discharging duty of preventing sand smuggling, the court said it is duty of the State government to protect them, and referred to a recent incident, where illegal sand miners tried to kill the official when he objected them from mining sand illegally in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu.