In the next few days, the supreme court has to decide its next move on the gang rape of Bellary district in Karnataka. On the court’s table is the question whether or not to uphold its decision to ban all mining activity in the area. At the time of writing, the court’s central empowered committee (CEC) has recommended the creation of a high-powered committee under additional PCCF Deepak Sarmah and a revolving fund allocation from the ad hoc CAMPA (compensatory afforestation management and planning authority). The CEC has also recommended designation of a court by the state of Karnataka for recovery of the amount payable towards implementation of the rehabilitation and reclamation plan. But given the limitations of its mandate as an arm of the forest bench (as was the case with the Lok Ayukta of Karnataka, whose recommendations to the state government are purely recommendatory), the CEC is silent on the need to hang the rapists of Bellary by the nearest tree. In an ideal world, that case should have been made by the media and the SC.
 
I am therefore surprised that the story of audacious destruction, loot, smuggling and bribe in Bellary is off the front pages of mainline dailies! The same is true with primetime television! Our hollering Arnab Goswamis, Barkhas and Rajdeep Sardesais seem to have ‘weightier’ matters of state on their plates. Did they even have time to read the CEC’s affidavits and Karnataka Lok Ayukta N Santosh Hegde’s report?
 
Stories on prosecuting the billionaires responsible for Bellary have so far been limited to the Wall Street Journal, the Hindustan Times, and a column I wrote for the Pioneer.
 
Surely, not everyone is hankering for advertising from the mining mafia. Just yesterday, the sober Sonia Singh of NDTV, tweeted that her 9 pm show is going to be about ‘real issues in the forthcoming session of parliament’. Is the gang rape of Rs 15,000 crore worth of iron ore a ‘real’ issue? Was the fact that a judge of the calibre of Justice Hedge has found some of India’s leading billionaires guilty of plotting an environmental holocaust a ‘real’ issue? In all her sincerity, Sonia didn’t seem to think so.
 
The few media networks still following the story are fixated on the political angle, i.e., the censure and resignation of the Karnataka chief minister. The media deserves a great deal of credit for getting some really senior CEOs into Tihar for transgressions over 2G, a notional resource. I wonder why the plunder of physical resources is a smaller story. This mining mafia funds at least two major political parties in the country. Our best writers and anchors know that. But they have reduced themselves to highlighting doomsday scenarios over steel prices. By doing this, they are blanking out the ethical bankruptcy of the ‘victims’ of the SC’s ban on mining. From their discourse, it is as if the resignation of Yeddyurappa was the only thing that the nation needed to accomplish, and now it is business as usual. Hello, what about prosecution and a proper jail term for the other rapists?
 
So, I request a review! How about exploring the bang of bringing down a huge corporate empire? Would it shake the earth far more that the torpedoing of a pathetic politician? It would. Forget ethics and national duty towards the environment, isn’t that sexy too? Why waste space chasing trivia on just how the enraged Yeddyurappa broke a laptop, or did he? The story of real consequence is to chase down Yeddyurappa’s generous benefactors from the billionaires club. At present, they are going scot free! It is an insult to journalism that far from hiding in the nearest illicit pit they dug up, Bellary’s culprits are getting away planting sympathetic stories in the premier economic press, an example on Tuesday being: tinyurl.com/jswsteelfacesbruntofminingban.
 
With Hegde retiring from the position of Lok Ayukta, his painstaking report of 464 pages is set to be consigned to flames. Far from pushing the system into instituting legal cases against the accused, identified with astonishing bluntness by Hegde and his courageous assistant UV Singh, I am only reading articles on how steel prices are going to rise. How about answering a few questions that the Lok Ayukta instead? One of the many examples is contained in Pg 372. It states: “It is seen, the source of donation given by SWML to Prerana Trust has come from JSW in circuitous manner, which has then donated the said money of  Rs.10.00 crore on 17/18.3.2010. It raises a question, why JSW had to transfer money to SWML to give donation to the Trust, when it could have directly given it to the Trust, when in reality, SWML was not in a financial condition to make such huge donation. From the nature of transaction, it looks that it is the JSWL which is making the donation through SWML. The circumstances and the manner in which the donation has been made gives rise to the suspicion that this money is not a donation, as it is understood in the common parlance, but money paid for some other consideration. Similarly, the sale of one acre of land by sons and son-in-law of the chief minister in Rachenahalli village to SWML is shrouded with suspicion.”
 
“In the documents of agreement to sell, it is stated that the entire consideration amount was received on the date the said agreement was signed. But from the records, it is seen that cheques amounting to Rs.20.00 crore were received on different dates, after the date of agreement to sell. The consideration amount paid for purchase of this land again has particularly come from Jindal Praxair Oxygen Company Limited, which transferred this amount to Jindal Steels, which in turn has transferred the money to M/s. SWML, which again in turn paid the same as consideration amount to the chief minister’s sons and son-in-laws. This type of convoluted transfer, coupled with the contradictions in the agreement of sale and the actual date of payment of consideration, certain creates a genuine doubt.”
 
Sympathetic coverage is possible only because the likes of JSW know that the corporate press is full of folks who wouldn’t take the trouble to read the gory details of the company’s doings in the CEC/Hegde report. It beats me how can the $10-billion OP Jindal group raise clarion calls and get coverage for it. If the SC ban on mining is impacting Jindal’s Vijaynagar and Tonagallu plants, that’s exactly what should happen to companies which have looted the exchequer and created a web of unholy alliances.
 
I don’t think Yeddyurappa needs to drown alone. Those bank-rolling his unholy trusts/trysts should go with him. I hope that sympathetic editorials cautioning against the cascading impact on steel prices don’t confuse the SC. I also hope that CEC’s recommendation of selectively lifting the ban is coupled with a time-bound action plan to increase the number of CEO inmates in Tihar, of course with Yeddyurappa for company.