TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: With Goa Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing around nine cases of illegal mining against various high profile persons including local politicians is likely to begin issuing summons to them from this week onwards.
This is despite the SIT still awaiting a response from the government on its proposal for a legal assistant and chartered accountants to assist them all through the investigations.
The government had announced appointing a panel of chartered accountants to scrutinise the records and find out illegalities of the last more than six years. A proposal in this regard was sought, which was submitted thereafter.
The SIT sleuths not delaying their investigation will seek deposition of all the persons named in the FIRs including the Rs 35,000-crore scam. “We are continuing with the probe. The summonses are being readied for dispatch. We are most likely to interrogate the suspended mines officers including former Mines Director Arvind Lolienkar initially followed by others…” said a police source.
The details of extraction, storage and trade till September 2012 when mining was stopped on court direction following allegation of illegalities, information regarding production, export, purchase of ore, domestic sale, iron ore storage, opening and closing stock, clearances from Ministry of Environment and Forest, Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) among others are already in the SIT custody.
The Mines department has also submitted reports of the Supreme Court appointed CEC, Justice MB Shah Inquiry Commission and Goa Legislative Assembly’s PAC, along with its last complaint before Crime Branch (before the cases being transferred to SIT) in July 2013.
