TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Suspended Director of Mines and Geology Department Arvind Lolienkar, suspended draftsman Robert Gonsalves and mining trading company Frost International’s operations manager Subrata Barik were on Saturday charge sheeted in the illegal mining case.
The 450-page charge sheet containing all the relevant documents including fake trading licenses issued to the mines trader was filed before the District and Sessions Court. A total of 34 witnesses have been examined during the nine-month long investigation led by DySP Nilu Raut Desai and PI Narayan Chimulkar.
The accused trio has been charged with cheating the State government and criminally conspiring to illegally export 1.30 lakh metric tons of iron ore from Goa to China on forged no objection certificates. The estimated loss has been pegged at Rs 1.17 crore.
Sources said the charge sheet has been filed under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using forged document as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, sections 7, 12 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and relevant sections of the Mines and Minerals Act.
Lolienkar, who was suspended on April 2, 2012 for allegedly issuing trade certificates to the company despite knowing the illegalities was arrested on March 28, 2014, after going through a series of questioning in the Crime Branch office at Dona Paula. He is currently lodged in judicial remand as his bail applications have been rejected by various courts in the State.
The SIT headed by Deputy Inspector General of Police K K Vyas is investigating 12 cases of illegal mining also involving national and international trading companies namely Bagadia Brothers, Shraddha Ispat and Magnum Pvt Ltd. The remaining 11 cases are presently in the investigation stage in which former chief minister Digambar Kamat among a few others have been quizzed.
The Singapore-based Bagadiya Brothers is booked for illegally transporting ore from February to October 2011 by evading royalty, which resulted in the loss of around Rs 60 lakh to the State exchequer.
The last complaint was against Shraddha Ispat wherein it is alleged to have exported iron ore to countries in 2006 year on forged NOCs. The company had paid the royalty but failed to disclose the source of the iron ore it exported.
The Mines department’s first complaint was filed before the CB in July last year followed by a string of similar complaints against various companies, government officers, bureaucrats and mining traders. The complaint was based on Justice Shah Commission report, CEC and PAC report by the then Leader of Opposition and present Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. The cases were later transferred to SIT.
