New Delhi, April 29 (IANS) The Supreme Court Friday suspended 19 mining leases in Karnataka following a report of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) saying that the operators were involved in illegal mining.

 
 The committee said these mines, located in Ramgadh area of Bellary district, had illegally encroached on forest areas. 
 
 The apex court's forest bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice K.S. Panicker Radhakrishnan said that the mining operations in respect of these 19 leases would immediately come to a halt and the extracted iron ore would not be allowed to be transported out.
 
 Bellary, a mineral rich district, is about 300 km from Karnataka's capital Bangalore and borders Andhra Pradesh.
 
 The apex court-appointed committee, which assists the court in forest and environmental matters, said the 19 mines were involved in illegal mining.
 
 The mines were identified in the first two parts of the voluminous report submitted by the CEC to the apex court April 15.
 
 The court asked the CEC to move a special leave petition seeking transfer of cases related to mining companies which had moved the high court and were allowed to continue operations.
 
 Most of these companies are in the list of 68 companies identified by the CEC in part three and four of the report. The court asked the panel to move the petition within a week.
 
 Chief Justice Kapadia passed the order after he said that a situation can’t be allowed to prevail where a state high court permits mining and the Supreme Court bans it.
 
 The court decided to hear the matter every Friday till the hearing was completed.
 
 In a damning indictment of illegal mining in Karnataka, the CEC earlier said that it was taking place at a colossal scale and could be worth over Rs.150 billion.
 
 “The extensive illegal mining in several states such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa pale into insignificance when compared to the illegal mining on colossal scale that has taken place in the state of Karnataka, particularly in district Bellary," the panel said.
 
 The CEC report on illegal mining came in the wake of a petition by an NGO.