Ex-Goa CM, two bureaucrats indicted in mining lease scam

Putting a former chief minister and two senior bureaucrats in the dock, Goa Lokayukta on Tuesday said that the CBI should probe corruption in the second renewal of 88 mining leases, while also slamming the state government’s Anti-Corruption Bureau for shielding the accused.

In his order on Tuesday, the Goa Lokayukta also questioned the speed with which a BJP-led coalition government led by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar cleared as many as 56 mining lease renewals in a week, including granting of 31 clearances during a single day.

Incidentally, this was done just before the Central government amended the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, which mandated that mining leases could only be auctioned afresh and not renewed in favour of existing leaseholders.

“The peculiar circumstances under which there was en masse renewal of the mining leases in a great hurry within a span of about one week is a grave incriminating circumstance against the three respondents which is required to be explained by the respondents concerned,” the Lokayukta order states.