Durai Dayanidhi, son of Union Minister MK Alagiri, is facing arrest after the Madras High Court on Tuesday rejected his bail petition in a multi-billion illegal granite mining scam case.
Apart from Dayanidhi, nine others are also under the scanner for carrying out sand and granite mining operations in violation of laws in Tamil Nadu.
Dayanidhi is still at large and a special police team has been commissioned for his lookout. Immigrations officers are also put on alert in order to prevent him and the others from flying out of the country.
Former Madurai Collector U Sahayam pointed out in a report the granite quarrying scam and estimated a loss of ₹16 billion to the state exchequer. Following the revelation of the scam, the government initiated a series of legal actions against many granite company owners, including Dayanidhi over their possible involvement.
Earlier this month the police arrested as many as 50 people in connection with the case.
Before executing the charges on suspects involved in the case, Vigilance and Anti-corruption officials on Sept 20 booked former Madurai District Collectors N Mathivanan and C Kamaraj, for their involvement and also raided more than 34 places in the Tamil Nadu state.
Dayanidhi's alleged role in the scam has caused further embarrassment to the DMK party, which is already struggling with the state government's crackdown on its leaders in connection with land grab cases.
Since AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa assumed the chief minister's office last year, several ex-DMK ministers were arrested in relation to the land grab allegations and a special task force was set up to book all the land sharks.
Jayalalithaa's special interest in dealing with the land grabs allegation cases is dubbed as a "political vendetta" by the DMK.
