NEW DELHI: In a starting revelation, Supreme Court appointed central empowered committee(CEC) on Tuesday told the court that 31 out of 128 hills in Aravali region in Rajasthan have vanished in the last 50 years due to massive illegal mining, compelling the court to direct the state to stop illegal mining in a 115.34 hectare area in Aravali hills within 48 hours.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta expressed shock on how hills got vanished which was also admitted by the state government and directed the chief secretary to take immediate steps to close illegal mining in the state and directed him to file affidavit by October 26 on compliance of its order.

The court said the state has miserably failed to protect the hills and allowed mining companies to carry out their operation for getting royalty at the cost of destruction to nature. The court said disappearance of hills in bordering area of Delhi might be one reason for growing pollution level and dust storm in Delhi as the hills, which earlier blocked the flow of pollution to Delhi, have disappeared.

“31 hills have disappeared. If hills get disappeared in the country, what will happen? Have people become ' Hanuman ' and are running away with hills? More than 20 per cent hills have vanished in the state,” the bench observed.

The state government admitted that illegal mining was still going on in the state despite apex court order. Additional Advocate General of the state S S Shamshery, however, contended that action was being taken against the mining companies and even FIR was being lodged against them. The court, however, was not satisfied with the assurance and passed the order for closing on mining operation within two days.

“Hills were created by God for some reason. If you start removing hills then pollution from other area will be coming to Delhi and that may be one of the reason for increasing pollution level in Delhi. For the sake of few mining companies, you are putting life of lakhs of people in danger. Damage has already been done. The devastation caused is apparent and you can seen it while travelling from Delhi to Jaipur,” the bench said.

On query from the court on how much royalty it is getting from mining companies, advocate A D N Rao, appearing for CEC, said that state is getting Rs 5000 cr from companies. Rao told the bench that apex court’s order was not being followed by state and pleaded the court to pass stringent direction for closing of illegal mining in the state.

“You give this Rs 5,000 crore for health of people of Delhi. Hospitals in Delhi are over crowded, people are dying here due to pollution,” the bench said

CEC in its report said that illegal mining was going on in 15 districts in Rajastan and Districts of Alwar , Dungaarpur , Sikar were worst affected. It said that illegal mining was going on 115.34 hectare. It said that the majority of the mining leases in the state are granted in “clusters”.

The court posted the case to October 29 to examine compliance of its order on closing of illegal mining in the state.

