Hubballi: The Samaja Parivartana Samudaya (SPS) Founder-President S R Hiremath has asked the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister H K Patil to break his silence over the iron ore mining scam that rocked Karnataka between 2006 and 2010.
Speaking to reporters in Hubballi, Hiremath said that Patil was the chairman of the one-man Cabinet sub-committee on illegal mining formed on October 16, 2015.
The committee has been entrusted with the task of looking into the report submitted by the then Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde on the illegal iron ore mining in Ballari and other parts of the state.
Initially, Patil himself uttered regarding the Lokayukta report and said that nearly 35 crore tonne of iron ore was exported from nearly 10 ports of the state and neighbouring states. But later, he became silent and the state government too did not take any action in this regard for obscure reasons, he said.
Hiremath asked Patil to disclose the details regarding the number of meetings the sub-committee held, the documents discussed, the money recovered and why there was no special investigation team formed to probe into the scam.
