A nexus ensures a court-imposed ban does not come in the way of stone crushers’ operations, penalties aren’t enforced and rules are eased for violators.
Last year, secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party Vikram Randhawa levelled a serious accusation at his senior in the party and a minister of state in the Union cabinet, Jitendra Singh. He said Singh, a parliamentarian from Jammu, was benefiting from corruption in the Union territory’s geology and mining department, which allowed illegal riverbed mining to flourish.
Within hours of the press conference, the BJP initiated disciplinary action against Randhava, and Singh filed a defamation lawsuit. Randhawa retracted his statement and apologized to the minister.
But Randhawa’s outburst ended up shining the spotlight on …
Tapasya is a journalist with The Reporters' Collective and the associate lead of the Wall of Grief project. They write about policy and governance and have previously written for The Wire, Article 14, Newslaundry and The Third Pole.
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