The Supreme Court on Monday has stayed all the iron ore mining activities by the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) at the Andhra Pradesh - Karnataka border. OMC is a multi-crore venture owned by the Reddy brothers in the Karnataka government - G Janardhan Reddy (Minister for Tourism and Infrastructure) and Karunakara Reddy (Minister for Revenue).
OMC has 3 mining leases, and faces allegations of massive encroachments of reserve forest areas of Bellary. The AP government, in November 2009, had banned its operations. However, in February, the High Court struck down the government order, following which the AP government moved the Supreme Court.
A Supreme Court Bench, consisting of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice Deepak Verma, has now asked a committee headed by the Survey of India (SoI) to review the mining areas and allegations of land encroachment. The court has granted 2 weeks to the SoI committee to file its report, and has said that no further mining activities will be permitted at the site until further orders.