Illegal mining: Karnataka Cabinet defers Lokayukta SIT extension

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Cabinet has deferred a decision on extending the term of the Lokayukta Special Investigation Team (SIT) on illegal mining plausibly in the wake of Law Minister HK Patil criticising the government over 'apathy' on this front.

On June 18, Patil wrote a scathing 7-page letter to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah lamenting that the government has not done enough to punish culprits and recover the wealth that was lost to illegal mining, which he said caused a loss of Rs 1.5 lakh crore. He has demanded a new SIT.

The next day, on June 19, the Cabinet deferred a decision extending the SIT's term by one more year from July 1.

In his letter, Patil had criticised the SIT stating that it had not made much progress.

The first Siddaramaiah-led Congress government formed the Lokayukta SIT with 194 posts in January 2014 to investigate the illegal mining scam, which helped the party come to power in 2013. Initially, the SIT had a two-year term.

"...due to the delay in providing infrastructure to the SIT initially, the investigations into illegal mining cases not being completed within the stipulated time and other various reasons...the term of said SIT was extended in several subsequent orders from time to time," the Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms (DPAR) stated. The last extension was from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025.

The SIT has 16 criminal cases pending for investigation. There are 38 preliminary inquiries pending on iron ore exports from New Mangaluru Port, Karwar Port, Murmugoa Port, Panaji Port and Chennai Port. Supplementary charge sheets are to be filed in 12 cases where iron ore evaluation reports are pending from the mining department and the ore evaluation committee.

Why now, asks Lahar Singh

Rajya Sabha BJP MP Lahar Singh Siroya wondered why Law Minister HK Patil "took so long" to write to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the illegal mining scam.

"Timing is everything in politics. Why is he doing it now?" the BJP leader said in a tweet.

"Siddaramaiah had used the mining scam to come to power in 2013. After coming to power though he had forgotten all about it. I had held a press conference on this issue...I had urged the Congress government to recover the mining scam money to fund their ‘guarantee’ schemes instead of emptying the state’s coffers," Siroya said.