The Supreme Court on Friday said a clear no to give special priority to the mining case of Reddy brothers and other leaseholders in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka with the Chief Justice announcing drastic overhaul of the decade-old procedure to deal with the forest and environment cases.

Under the new plan, the CJI pronounced creation of another forest bench to ensure that the projects caught in a legal wrangle due to the involvement of the forest and environment issues were cleared fast as thousands of crore rupees were unnecessary blocked due to the long litigations.
As amicus curiae Uday Lalit referred to the Bellary mining cases, which include the Reddy brothers’ mines, currently under intense cloud with the Karnataka government under the attack of the Congress on alleged illegal mining by them, the CJI refused to give them special priority. He said these cases would be taken up as per the new schedule drawn for disposal of the forest and environment cases. He said of the two forest benches, the first would be headed by him and the another by Justice B. Sudershan Reddy. As per the priority list, the Noida Park case against the Mayawati government in UP would be taken first from July 19 and till it is disposed of, no other case would be heard.
The CJI said both the forest benches would sit on Monday and Friday, respectively. The bench would hear matters related to mining, other projects and roads in the forest areas, illegal cutting of trees, smuggling of sandal wood, tandu leave, tiger reserves, bird sanctuaries and other wildlife issues.