The Madras High Court today recommended contempt proceedings against the judicial magistrate of Melur for "deliberately disobeying" its order in the illegal mining cases filed againstsome quarry barons in the area.
The court directed its Registry to send a copy of its recommendation to the Chief Justice to initiate contempt proceedings or disciplinary proceedings or both against the judicial magistrate.
Justice P N Prakash of the court's Madurai bench said Keelavalavu Police in one of thecases charged 23 people under various IPC sections including 147 (rioting) and 379 (theft) and provisions of Tamil Nadu Public Property Damage and Loss (TNPPL) Act.
The judge issued the directive when the Special Public Prosecutor told the court that the judicial magistrate was not obeying its order to take cognisance of all the offences committed by the granite barons and committing the cases to the sessions court.
The accused could be given even life imprisonment if convicted under the sections. Besides cases had been filed under Prevention of Atrocities against SCs/STs Act, Explosive Substances Act, the court said.
But the judicial magistrate, despite clear direction from the high court to take cognisance of all the offences, had taken cognisance of only one offence under 379, and had kept the cases pending without committing them to the sessions court, the court said.
"The JM's act is beyond his jurisdiction," it said.
"This (act of JM) will mean, as the public prosecutor contended, the accused will escape with a flea-bite sentence (for theft)," the judge said.
In all the illegal mining cases, wherein 98 final reports had been submitted, the magistrate had taken cognizance of only one offence, namely theft.
Though the high court came to the conclusion that the records showed that the offences under various IPC sections were made out and asked him to take the 98 final reports into cognizance and do the needful, the judicial magistrate had taken cognizance of only one section.
When magistrate K V Mahendraboopathy was directed to file a report, he said averments in the charge sheet did not state the accused had the intention of causing loss, and hence he refused to take cognisance of major offences disclosed in the report.
The judge said under TNPPDL Act, if a person commits
mischief by doing any act in respect of any property, even if the value of loss was Rs 100, one will be liable to be punished.
In cases against the accused, they had used explosives to blast government properties for illegal quarrying. Hence it could not be stated that the accused did not have any intention or knowledge about the consequences of the act done by them, the court said.
The investigating officer had collected evidence and had filed them along with the charge sheet.
The high court also had gone into those materials and had directed the magistrate to take cognizance of the offences under TNPPDL Act.
"But the magistrate was depending on the stray observations made in a stray case, and not committing the cases."
"One can wake up a sleeping man,but not a person pretending to sleep. The JM belong to latter category," the judge said.
The judge directed the judicial magistrate to take cognizance of all the offences disclosed in all the cases relating to illegal miningand commit the cases to the sessions court.
The high court had on September 11, 2014 appointed senior IAS officer U Sagayam as the Court-Commissioner to probe "irregularities" in granite mining on a PIL. Sagayam had earlier said illegal quarrying had caused a loss of Rs 16000 crore to the government.
