HC pulls up mines officials

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad, March 12 : The AndhraPradesh High Court on Thursday pulled up officials of the mines and geology department who were present in the court for nonimplementation of it order.
Dealing with a contempt petition filed by Ms K.Rajeswari, of Kadapa district, Justice Goda Raghuram directed the department to file an affidavit within 10 days along with a chronology of events explaining why they did not follow an order of the court in respect of a lease application for an iron ore mine in Kadapa district.
The court had earlier ordered the state’s mines secretary and the director of mines and his assistant director to be present in the court to explain their failure to implement the order.
The counsel for the mines department, Mr Ch. Surya Satish, tried to convince the court as to why they did not act upon the order of the court for a period of three years.
Replying to the counsel plea , the judge said that a citizen can use the services of a high court judge by filing a petition in the court with Rs 100 court fee and where as it takes lakhs of rupees for the same citizen to get the mining authorities look at his petition.