The Supreme Court on Friday suspended all mining and stone crushing activities in the highly eco-sensitive Aravalli Hills in Haryana and asked the State Government and Ministry of Environment and Forests to respond to a PIl that exposed rampant illegal mining in 28 villages adjoining the Aravalli and Shivalik ranges in violation of a ban imposed by the apex court in 2002.

The court further ordered its environment expert body — Central Empowered Commission (CEC) — to conduct inspection of the region and submit a status report identifying the areas of illegal mining. The matter will be heard by the Forest Bench after two weeks. The petitioner NGO Bandhua Mukti Morcha annexed satellite imagery of illegal mining carried out across 287 hectares in the Aravalli ranges by stone crushing units situated in Mewat, Bhiwani and Mahendragarh districts.

The extent of illegal mining in the Aravalli region shocked the Bench. “The allegations in the petition are so serious. The photos show the extent of illegal mining taking place,” said the Bench of Justices FM Ibrahim Kalifulla and AK Sikri. “The State and MoEF will file a status report on implementation of our earlier orders in two weeks,” the Bench held, adding that due to illegal mining, what the State could otherwise earn as royalty from legal mining was getting lost due to “unscrupulous” persons.

The petition also annexed past orders of the apex court, beginning from October 29, 2002 imposing a blanket ban on mining activities in Haryana to the latest issued on May 8, 2009 specifically for the Aravalli Range. While mining is permitted in the Aravalli Range in Rajasthan, the petition said that due to an increasing demand for masonry stone used in construction activity, the stone crushing units in Haryana were putting pressure on Aravallis, denuding the mountains of precious sand and minerals and even destroying vegetation situated in the forest area in the hills. Quoting an affidavit filed by State of Rajasthan in a dispute pending against certain stone crushing units in Haryana, the petition said, “There are about 400 crushers operating within radii of 60 kilometres from State of Rajasthan in the territory of State of Haryana. 

These units are illegally sourcing material from Aravallis as the capacity to mine in Aravalli range facing Rajasthan is just sufficient to cater to the demand of stone crushing units in that State, which is to the tune of 36,000 tonnes per day.”The petition even produced portions from a CEC report that observed in its report dated March 16, 2010 that more than 70 per cent of receipts issued for royalty by the State were “bogus and fake”. This report was prepared in the context of stone crushing units in the State of UP. It said, “more often than not the material being procured by the stone crushers in UP was illegally mined stone.”The petition urged the court to shut down all stone quarries and allow the State to issue licences that must operate in conjunction with their mining leases.