The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Centre, the Central Bureau of Investigation and five states on a plea seeking the prosecution of entities involved in illegal sand mining, PTI reported.

A bench headed by Justice SA Bobde sought responses from the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Mines, and the governments of Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The top court also directed the Centre to not grant environmental clearances to sand mining projects without taking into account the impact of the projects, ANI reported.

The petitioner claimed that rampant illegal mining in these states were causing environmental degradation, according to PTI. Advocates Prashant Bhushan and Pranav Sachdeva, appearing for the petitioner, told the Supreme Court that sand mining was tbeing carried out without the requisite environment clearances.

The plea also sought a direction from the Supreme Court to the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate sand mining scams mentioned in the petition.