Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday indicated, that the Rs35,000 crore illegal mining scam, in which a former Congress Chief Minister, top bureaucrats and mining companies are linked, could be handed over to the CBI for investigation.
Parrikar also said, that the final decision on handing over the case to the CBI would be taken by the Goa Government, after the state police, whose Special Investigation Team is probing the case, submits a report to home ministry.
“So we are going to do it. let the police give their report,” Parrikar told reporters on Monday, when asked if the states government was contemplating handing over the mining scam case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The Chief Minister also indicated that the CBI may be the appropriate authority to the probe the mammoth scam, as the case was complicated in nature. “Government has not taken a decision. There are many issues which are very complex in the mining (scam case),” the former Defence Minister said.
Mining in Goa was stopped both by the State Government, as well as the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests in 2012, following a Rs35,000 crore illegal mining scam which was unearthed by the Justice MB Shah commission of inquiry appointed by the Union Mines ministry.
All top mining companies were indicted in the illegal mining scam exposed by the Commission, which has also pointed out to a politician-bureaucrat-mining companies nexus. For Congress Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has been questioned by the SIT on several occasions in connection with the scam.