Govt to act against mining-tainted officials

The IAS officers against whom disciplinary action has been recommended include three former directors of Mines and Geology department - K S Prabhakar, M E Shivalingamurthy and Gangaram Baderiya.

The forest officers who will face the music for their alleged role in illegal mining include S Muthaiah, N Rajashekar and M K Shukla, former deputy conservators of forest of Bellary, and Srinivasulu, former DCF, Chitradurga. The high-level committee was constituted to study the report of the Lokayukta on illegal mining submitted to the State Government on July 27.

The Lokayukta report identified over 617 officials, some by name and others by designation involved in facilitating illegal mining. Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Law Minister Suresh Kumar said the civil service officers will be given a chance to provide their version before disciplinary action is initiated against them.

The committee has recommended strict disciplinary action against the then Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) in Bellary, Mutthaiah, for alleged abuse of official power and causing loss of ~13.53 crore  to the exchequer.

Of the 617 officials named in the Lokayukta report, 170 could not be traced and action has been taken against 182, he said, adding the remaining will also face action in due course as per law.

The 170 ‘officials’ could not be identified as specific names or designations were not been mentioned in the Lokayukta. For instance, there were entries in the list which mentioned ‘driver’, ‘check post’, ‘forest guard’ etc.

Process to begin soon

Various departments had started the process of taking action against 182 officials specifically identified in the report. The officials belong to various departments such as mining, forest, revenue and transport. “The process of initiating action against the remaining 245 officials will also start in due course, after due verification by departments,” Suresh Kumar said.

The committee report will be sent to the Lokayukta office as the government ‘Action Taken Report’ on Saturday. When a minister reportedly told the meeting as to why IAS officer B S Ramaprasad, who was ‘named’ in the Lokayukta mining report was allowed to be on the Jairaj Committee, Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda reportedly said Ramaprasad’s track record “is good and there is no need for any action”. An IAS officer also told the meeting that Ramaprasad “is an upright officer and there is no need to doubt his integrity”.

As secretary of mines and geology department, Ramaprasad processed a mining licence pertaining to 10 acres. When it went to the Centre for further processing, the officer recalled the licence he issued. So, the decision taken by him became infructuous and hence there is no case against him, official sources said.

The Cabinet also decided to accept the recommendation of the Jairaj Committee to recover five-fold the loss caused to the exchequer by the officials by their omissions and commissions.

“Suitable amendments will have to be made to the existing law for a five-fold recovery of losses. The Cabinet decided to take steps to amend existing legislation to bring the same into force.  Meantime, cases will be filed in civil courts to recover the losses”, Kumar said.

Besides criminal cases against indicted officials, the committee has recommended to the government to entrust the probe into illegal mining to a competent agency, Kumar said. Jairaj made a power presentation on the illegal mining and the action being taken and the reforms to be introduced, to the Cabinet.

Other recommendations

The committee also suggested the constitution of a multi-departmental SIT to continuously monitor mining activities, benami transactions and tax evasion.

Introduction of a single-window system has also been recommended to ensure transparency in the issue of mining licences. The panel has recommended that the SIT should involve officials of mines and geology, forest, transport, home, revenue, port and commercial tax departments to help control illegal mining .

A high-power committee will also be constituted to monitor the implementation of the disciplinary action against the officials.

While the government has been forthcoming in initiating action against officials, the same cannot be said when it comes to non-officials indicted in the report.

At its last meeting, the State Cabinet decided to seek four clarifications from the Lokayukta, including whether the Lokayukta followed the principles of natural justice and whether the Lokayukta Act authorised the ombudsman to recommend action against members of the council of ministers.

Govt may use coal scam to smear Oppn

In what could be a powerful weapon for the scam-hit ruling BJP to counter the opposition parties on the corruption issue, the Justice V P Mohan Kumar Commission of inquiry on Friday submitted to the government its report on the alleged irregularities in procurement, washing and transportation of coal between 2002 and 2009 in the State,
reports DHNS from Bangalore.