HYDERABAD: Refusing to vacate the stay on sand auctions and quarrying in the state despite the government’s request, the High Court on Friday pulled up the government for its failure to recover the penalties imposed on contractors for illegal quarrying of sand.On March 21 the court stayed sand auctions and banned quarrying altogether in the state from April 1.Dealing with a batch of writ petitions, a division bench comprising chief justice Madan B Lokur and justice PV Sanjay Kumar asked advocate-general A Sudarshan Reddy on what basis the authorities waived penalties. Saying that penalties were not collected from several contractors, the court cited the case of KV Narasimha Reddy who was fined Rs 5 crore for mining sand illegally in the Birkur reach in Nizamabad district but no penalty was collected from him.“One contractor had dug about 26,000 cubic metres of sand but the penalty imposed was waived off. There are several cases where penalty collection is zero. For more than half a dozen times penalty was waived off for Narasimha Reddy. Produce the file on Narasimha Reddy,’’ the chief justice told the advocate-general. Asking Reddy’s counsel to deposit Rs 1.5 crore in the court, the bench adjourned the matter to Monday.Meanwhile, a public interest litigation petition was filed in the High Court seeking recovery of penalty of Rs 5.02 crore, along with interest, from Amanchi Srinivasulu, sand contractor in Prakasam district and brother of Congress MLA Amanchi Krishna Mohan.
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