New Delhi, April 29 (IANS) The Supreme Court Friday suspended 19 mining leases in Karnataka following a report of the Central Empowered Committee saying that the operators were involved in illegal mining.
The committee said these mines, located in Ramgadh area of Bellary district, had illegally encroached on forest areas.
The apex court’s forest bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice K.S. Panicker Radhakrishnan said that the mining operations in respect of these 19 leases would immediately come to a halt and the extracted iron ore would not be allowed to be transported out.
Bellary, a mineral rich district, is about 300 km from Karnataka’s capital Bangalore and borders Andhra Pradesh.
