Parrikar dismisses Rs.35,000 crore loss figure in mining scam

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar Thursday said former Supreme Court judge M.B.Shah Commission's indictment of illegal mining in the state and the Rs.35,000 crore loss has no credibility.

Parrikar also accused the media of being obsessed with the Shah Commission report, which exposed the nexus between politicians, mining companies and bureaucrats in the scam.

"The Rs.35,000 crore figure is just a dialogue by the Shah Commission. The very next line (in the report) says that it could be wrong," the chief minister, who has been critical of the report, told the assembly during the ongoing winter session.

"I have not accepted that figure," said Parrikar, accusing the former Supreme Court judge of having a "cavalier approach".

The Shah Commission report was tabled nearly a year after the union mines ministry appointed the former apex court judge to head a judicial commission probing illegal mining in Goa and in other parts of the country.

The Supreme Court is already hearing a case related to the illegal mining scandal. It had earlier imposed a ban on all mining activity on the heels of two similar bans by the state and the central government.