Union minister Alagiri son's anticipatory bail plea rejected

The Madras High Court today rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Union Minister MK Alagiri's son, Durai Dayanidhi, in the multi-crore illegal granite quarrying case.

Dayanidhi, for whom a special police team was on the lookout, and nine others are facing charges that companies owned by them mined sand and granite without permission.

Justice Mathivanan of the Madurai bench of the court also rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Dayanidhi's business partner S Nagarajan as also the bail application of Deputy Director of Mines Department Shanmugavel, already arrested in the case.

The court rejected anticipatory bail pleas of a granite company owner and his son in the alleged scam while granting relief to the owner's wife.

Government cracked down on the firms after former Madurai Collector U Sahayam in a report, estimated the losses incurred from illegal granite mining at around Rs 16,000 crore.

On September 15, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption officials booked two IAS officers--former Madurai District Collectors N Mathivanan and C Kamaraj--for alleged corruption in the case and conducted raids across 34 places in the state.

Police had alerted immigration authorities to help them in preventing Dayanidhi and other accused from leaving the country. The companies' accounts had already been frozen.