Alagiri's son Dayanidhi denied anticipatory bail

Chennai - The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court Tuesday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Durai Dayanidhi, son of union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister M.K. Alagiri, in the illegal granite quarrying case.

Dayanidhi was a director in Olympus Granite, one of the companies under the government scanner for illegal quarrying. Police are on the lookout for Dayanidhi and have alerted immigration authorities to stop him and 11 others from leaving the country.

The bail plea came up for hearing at the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court Tuesday.

The court also declined anticipatory bail for T.K. Selvaraj, promoter of Sindhu Granites, while granting anticipatory bail to his wife Shanthi Selvaraj.

"We will decide the next course of action after seeing the full order," Veera Kathiravan, advocate for Selvaraj and his wife told IANS.

The AIADMK government started its crackdown on illegal granite quarries in the Madurai region after former Madurai Collector U. Sahayam in a report estimated the losses incurred from illegal granite mining at around Rs.16,000 crore.

On Sep 15, vigilance officials searched 34 places in Tamil Nadu, after filing two cases against two IAS officers and a group of state officials for irregularities in quarrying.

The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) conducted the raid following a detailed inquiry to probe large scale irregularities in granite quarrying in Madurai district over the past several years.

According to DVAC, a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against IAS officers N. Mathivanan and C. Kamaraj and other state government officials.

Mathivanan, currently director at the department of sugar, was formerly the district collector in Madurai.

Kamaraj, managing director of the Tamil Nadu Salt Corp., was a former district collector at Madurai.

According to DVAC, Mathivanan and some officials abused their position, concealed facts pertaining to large scale illegal quarrying by PRP Granites and Exports.

The DVAC also charged them with falsifying the records to show that there was no illegal quarrying by the company.

The DVAC has charged Kamaraj and some officials with abusing their official position to conceal the encroachment and illegal quarrying in the water bodies of Madurai district.

The role of several serving and retired government officials of various departments and private individuals is also being probed, DVAC said.